**Chapter 1 – Tragedies that Change**
(Amity Park, Illinois, if the events of DP happened at the end of the 19th century.)
The icy rain bit through clothes and trickled down spines that winter's night, though the two men standing across from one another were oblivious to it as they starred unmoving down at the fresh grave between them, tears forming freezing lines down their faces.
"I can't… I can't believe she's gone" the lanky silver haired man sobbed, the other bulkier man just grunted nodding, unable to form words.
"I lov- We, we loved her …so much… how can she be gone?" Vlad continued his voice braking on the last word.
"I- I don't know, the- the doctor said that she probably had the heart murmur since childhood, but it- it went unnoticed be-because she keep herself health, oh why!" Jack finished the statement with a broken yell.
"Oh! such tragedy, oh death is So unfair, always taking from us those we truly love " said an unusually jolly voice from slightly beside them, they jumped from their mutual misery, to see a creepily cheerful, plump man in weird clothes and a weirder hat perched on top of a folding chair left over from the funeral earlier.
"Ghost!" yelled Jack jumping back a step and searching his pockets for the mini ecto-cannon he just knew had to be there.
"Oh no! You have me mistaken, sir I'm no ghost, I'm the one that may be able to bring your beloved Madeline back " the man replied looking between the two merrily, Vlad and Jack just starred at him, Jack's search for a gun momentarily forgotten.
"Wha- what do you mean?" they both said.
"Well… just what it sounded like sirs I. Can. Bring. Her. Back. All-you-have-to-do-is-sign-this-silly-little-contact! Hum? How about it? " The Millennium Earl said rushed out the lump of words in the middle in a burble that Jack and Vlad barely heard as they were drawn in by the way the Earl was grinning in a confidence inspiring way.
**page**
It was dawn and Danny was laying in his bed, his eyes dry and red from crying and his mind blank in grief, but he pulled himself from it when someone knocked lightly on his door.
"Danny? Are you awake?" Jazz whispered from the hallway obviously to not wake him if he was asleep.
"Yeah Jazz, come in" he replied in a detached sort of way, he sat up leaning his head back against the cool wood of the headboard as she walked through the door in an emotionally exhausted way and sat herself down in his desk chair, hugging her arms around herself.
"Danny did you notice? Dad hasn't come home from the cemetery yet, I'm worried, its' pretty cold out there" Jazz said, Danny nodded in agreement replying,
"Yeah you're right, maybe we should go get him?" Jazz nodded to this and held up a warm coat and stood waiting as Danny scrambled out of bed and dragged a shirt over his head.
**page**
The cemetery was silent in the predawn as Jazz stopped at the gate, pausing she looked up the hill to the black block of the empty church, before dismounting and rolling the bike over to the fence were Danny was leaning, his ghostly form glowing softly after having phased back into the visual spectrum.
"At least the rains stopped" Danny said looking to the recently emerged moon hanging in the sky, Jazz didn't answer him.
The two were quiet after that as they made their way through the cemetery, heading for the clearer area near the back were all the newer graves were.
"Hey, Dad? Uncle Vlad?" Jazz and Danny both called as they neared they mother's Stone.
"Where are they? I hope Vlad hasn't… Hey Dad what are you two doing in there!" Jazz yelled as she ran into the shadowy edges of the woods.
"Hey Jazz wait up!" Danny called after her as he followed the crunch of her snow boots on the icy ground further into the darkened woods.
**End**
Uh hello… yes I know I'm starting yet another story although I haven't finished any of my others, …well I don't have a good excuse for that but, at least I'm writing something right? –D.C.