I'd really rather not go into where I've been for the past year or so. I didn't forget about my place here. Things came up. And I had to take care of them. My other works are still being looked over, I've forgotten the plot to most of them. Please don't be upset with me-I will try to continue them. Meanwhile, this came to mind and it felt really, really good to get this work out of my system.
This is based ever so loosely on the book The Time Travelers by Caroline B. Cooney. I mean this is based so loosely that all I did was use a few plot points and a few settings. I didn't even really have to put this disclaimer up here because it has nothing to do with the actual book.
Disclaimer-I do not own Danny Phantom or any related characters. They are the sole property of Butch Hartman and Nickelodeon Studios. I do not own The Time Travelers saga, Caroline B. Cooney does.
*Bold Italics are thoughts.
(Danny's POV)
I walked around the corner, just like every other day, coming home from school at Casper High. It was a cool sixty-three degrees in Amity Park, the sky filled with gray cotton clouds with blue undertones. I was wearing my favorite denim pants with a non-see-through white shirt. My book bag was slung lazily around my shoulder, the weight intensifying with every step I took on the old, cracked sidewalk. The leaves crunched in most places, scaring away the little creatures looking for food. It was late fall, and winter was just around the corner.
My school had let out for fall break, and I, of course, was staying home with my radiantly dysfunctional family-and by dysfunctional I mean ghost hunting, ghost hunting equipment, ghost zone inventing, ghosts-you get the idea.
My best friend since first grade came flying round the corner, waving a piece of paper in his hand.
"Danny! Hey Danny, wait up!" If it was one thing, Tucker could be loud enough sometimes to wake the dead.
I stopped, but not before taking in the view of the dilapidated Manson mansion in the distance. It had been there for who knows how long, with some speculating it had been built not long after the Civil War. The long, gray-white columns on the narrow porch stood silently, intimidating-like. The rusted iron gate warned off any visitors.
Tucker stopped beside me, panting.
He really needed to get out more.
"Look what I got, Danny! They mailed it to the school for some reason. I got accepted to tour Harvard over the break. The airfare and everything's paid for. Aren't you happy for me?" His face fell.
I blinked. "Uh, yea Tuck that's great. So when do you leave?" I was secretly hoping he wouldn't get accepted so I wouldn't have to spend the break alone-selfish I know but with a family like mine you can't help but wish things.
"Well today's Friday, so…", he began, taking is precious PDA out of his green cargo pants' pocket. He pressed some buttons, and pushing his glasses back on his nose he said, "A little more than thirty hours from now."
I cocked an eyebrow. I'm terrible with numbers.
"I leave Sunday evening. My flight is at seven-thirty. You better be at the airport waving good-bye." He grinned.
I grinned too. This is my best friend. Of course I'd be there. Tucker stared at the drain under the sidewalk behind me.
"Are you going to be okay ghost-hunting and patrolling without me? Danny, I don't want you to get hurt. I feel guilty leaving you like this, but this is a once in a life-time opportunity."
"No, Tucker, don't feel guilty. I'll manage. Besides", I started, flexing my right bicep, "I got the guns for it." It was nice to have a laugh with him, laughing was something I was doing less and less of lately.
We stood there for a while, I eventually having to put my bag down. He talked with excitement about Harvard and seeing the sights in Cambridge, Massachusetts, (which there couldn't be much of), and of course, the ever so beautiful college girls.
They were years older than he, but it did not seem to bother him in the slightest. He read in the letter that Harvard University was the oldest institution of higher learning in the U.S., being founded in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. He beamed when it mentioned it was a member of the Ivy League.
I didn't see the enthusiasm he did in college, I don't know, I guess because I don't think I'm smart enough to go. Tucker's been saying for years I'll get into Dartmouth or Princeton (Harvard being his, of course). I'd always smile and say that I hope for the best. Which was probably going to be the technical school in downtown Amity Park.
I noticed our shadows disappearing on the sidewalk. It was dusk, with the sun still hovering in the distance. The sky had turned to a crisp pink, with blue and purple hues around the moving clouds. The temperature had dropped about four degrees. I shivered.
Tucker seemed to get the hint when he saw the goose bumps on my arms. "It's getting chilly out here." He rubbed his hands together. He looked over his left shoulder at the Manson mansion.
"Hey Danny…?" The dark-skinned boy glanced between me and the house. He better not be thinking what I think he's thinking. Not in a million years am I going into that-
"You feeling up to a little action tonight? It's almost dark outside, no one will see us. You and I can phase through the fence and wander around without getting caught. I have to spend all day tomorrow packing and listening to my parents. This is the last we'll see each other till I get back and of course the airport, but that will only be for a few minutes." He raised his eyebrows.
I rubbed the back of my neck.
The house is a beauty-take that however you want considering its condition-but it was so dangerous for a human that couldn't phase themselves out of rotting wood or stop breathing harmful air. The weeds had grown so that getting up the front steps was impossible, let alone pushing the great gate open. The years of paint were chipping away and the windows covered with cloth from the inside.
Rumor has it that a maiden named Samantha Manson lived there during the late nineteenth century with her father and her maids, her mother having died of tuberculosis when she was a child. George Manson was a well-respected businessman of Amity Park, throwing lavish parties and feasts. He had remarried twice, with the other woman being just like the previous. He finally settled with a woman named Charlotte. She had red hair and freckles, and constantly degraded his daughter without regard.
Each wife after Margaret Manson, she being Samantha's mother, redecorated the home to suit their tastes. Some say that she spent more on decorating and herself than she did on anything else, including food. Mr. Manson did not have anything to do with Charlotte or Samantha, with the latter being the target of the wife's attention-less wrath.
Samantha kept a diary, but most of the ink had been washed away when some kind of liquid had been dumped on it. What was left, though, was not a pleasant read. She had written about Charlotte striking her if she disobeyed and forcing her to watch the butcher if the maids' chores were not done.
It was time after time of watching the butcher that Samantha had become a vegetarian. Hailed as the most beautiful woman in Amity Park, the girl's heart dissipated with each passing day at finding true love, and a purpose in the world.
She was married off to a Dashier Baxter, a blond who had no sense at all and was after the Manson fortune. In said in the obituary, after she had found out she was pregnant with their first child, Samantha hung herself in the barn, only being twenty-four at the time.
Tucker was still staring at me. "Yo Danny…?" He snapped right at my face.
I blinked. "….I guess we can go in there. If you get hurt it's your fault." That was a lie-if anything happened to him it would be mine. I could have stopped it.
We crossed the street, the streetlights guiding us. It was completely dark outside now. Once we entered the massive gate, we would be in total darkness with the exception of the stars.
Checking if anyone was around, which there wasn't, of course, I flashed into ghost mode. It had always gave Tucker the creeps, he never looked at me while I did it. I looked at the house across the street and back at Tucker. He seemed ready enough.
I put my arm around his shoulders and we glided across the street, stopping once we got to the iron gate. I looked at him and he looked at me. I phased through it and glided again to the front porch, watching where I put Tucker down. I hovered in mid-air.
He lifted a large chain and padlock on the door. "I knew it was going to be locked." He looked back at me, the luminescence from my eyes shining on his glasses. I rolled my eyes and grabbed his wrist, phasing us both through the door.
This wasn't ordinary darkness we had came upon. This was advanced darkness. The glow from my ghostly body and eyes was nothing against this darkness. I couldn't even make out Tucker, and he was right beside me.
"Come on, man, fire up a ghost ray on your hand. We don't have much time", he urged.
I did as he asked and the room lit up considerably. The oversized staircase was in front of us, the red-wine colored carpet falling into itself. The gray slate floor was cracked everywhere-the dangers of this place practically screaming at us.
Tucker began to take a step, but I reached out to stop him. "Don't walk on this floor, your weight could make it cave." I grabbed his wrist with my left hand and we floated into the parlor. I stopped in the middle of the room.
He broke free of my grasp, tip-toeing to the couch in front of us. "Any way you could make that brighter?"
Again, I did as he asked and the ghost ray glowed a faint yellow instead of green, the entire room looked like it was straight out of a horror movie. This place was actually giving me the creeps, which I thought was impossible now. I'd seen enough ghost fights and things of the like.
He was nosing through some papers on the coffee table. I wandered over to the fireplace, admiring the ornate carvings on the wood. The mirror above it was cracked and dirty, with only the white of my hair showing up.
I did a double take. The mirror wasn't a mess anymore, it was perfectly whole again and I could see my entire reflection. The wood wasn't covered with dust mites anymore, it shined like new.
I turned around. The furniture wasn't covered anymore, I could see people walking and talking and living their lives as if I wasn't even there. The room began to light up.
I floated out of the parlor, back into the foyer. The staircase did not loom, it stood majestically in the middle of the room. The slate floor was back to its dull gray color.
I didn't have to phase through the door-the gold door handles waited to be turned. It's not padlocked anymore.
I phased through the door anyway, stopping short when I saw the view in front of me. There were no cars parked on the road-heck there wasn't even a road to begin with! Horses and buggies moved quickly, like they do in the old silent movies.
I floated out to the yard, and I felt ground for the first time in a while. My powers shortened-I was back human and I hadn't instigated it.
Tucker!
I turned around to go back inside, but was cut off when a ripping sensation went through my chest. I was being pulled-but how?-the sound of screaming filled my ears as I went through this godforsaken vortex.
As soon as it had come, it was over. The mansion stood in front of me glittering as it did back in its heyday.
Back?
The weeds were gone, the road was gone, there was a elegant walk leading up to the house from a dirt road in the distance. Birds chirped in the trees that loomed over the walkway.
Birds? In trees?
"Samantha!" came a shrill cry from the distance. I jerked my head around way to fast. Wait, Samantha?
A voice answered, "Coming, Charlotte!" from a place dangerously close to where I was standing. A girl in Victorian dress emerged from the trees carrying a white tablet.
Did I just…? No that's impossible. Time Travel doesn't exist. Then how did I get here? Did I fall through Time?
I shook my head and rubbed my eyes. This is a dream. A very good one, but a dream nonetheless.
I pinched my arm just to be sure. I counted to three and opened my eyes. Everything was the same, except the girl had made it to the front porch.
Oh yes, Daniel Fenton had fallen indeed.
A few points:
-I know Sam's father's name is Jeremy, but Jeremy was not a popular name back in the 19th century. You could say I'm keeping this historically accurate. Don't worry, I'm not changing the names of anyone else. I've really only changed, his, her moms, and added a few letters to Dash's.
-Danny has gone back in time to 1895. Keep that in mind.
-Seems kind of dull I know, but trust me, they'll go on an adventure that only a trespasser in Time could go on. *winks*
Um yea anyway. You know the drill. :D