AN: I think by now you guys should be used to me taking one month+ to update. You'll just have to be patient! :) This time, I almost lost my muse completely for this entire fandom, and fanfiction in general, with this chapter only half finished. But then I got a hold of the original HiC script (thanks A BUNCH to Opal Static) and I just had to keep writing. (Did you know Jonah was supposed to have GREEN eyes in the script? Interesting!) Anyway, I recieved a critique saying that things were moving a bit too slowly in this story so expect things to get moving pretty quickly here. Enjoy!


Matt clenched a couch pillow in one hand and gripped Carrie's hand with his other. The TV screen flickered and filled the dark room with random flashes of white and red. In the movie, the man's throat poured scarlet blood and he screamed in pure agony before going completely silent and still. His masked attacker stood over his curled-up form and cackled.

Needing an excuse to turn his gaze away from the disturbing movie, Matt glanced to his right at Jonah, squeezed between him and Wendy. Jonah stared at the television set, also wide-eyed, but not with horror. His expression was more of wonder, of relaxed curiosity.

Before he'd slipped the VHS tape in, he'd warned Jonah that the movies would get rather creepy and graphic. Jonah had shot him an irate look, that reminded Matt that not much could scare Jonah. Not after all he'd been through and experienced, not after working with the dead and contacting the very same dead.

He also was more or less concerned by Jonah's reaction to Carrie. The two hadn't exchanged many words, but Jonah had stared at her with the wide eyes of terror that Matt had expected to be saved for the movies. Thinking about it, though, Carrie's ash-blonde hair and tight stovepipe pants and low-cut sweater could've been alarming to a boy from an era of loose-fitting dresses.

Suddenly, a strange noise bled into the air that Matt didn't recognize. Assuming right away that it was the movie, he flinched and jumped accordingly. But nothing seemed to be too awry on the screen―just the murderer stalking his next victim―and the sound had come more from his right than in front of him on the television. He turned his head to find Jonah's face scrunched in an almost comical look of shock and discomfort. Then Matt noticed the lock of dark hair that dangled over Jonah's arm, which led his gaze to Wendy's sleeping head resting haphazardly on Jonah's shoulder. she breathed softly, but gave an occasional hiccup-like snore, as if she was reacting to something in her dream.

Matt grinned and playfully nudged him. "She seriously fall asleep?" Jonah nodded, his awkward expression not wavering. "Well, wake her up, then!"

"I fear it would be impolite…" he muttered. "And she looks so…I don't know…innocent. Why don't we let her be―I'll get used to it."

Matt shrugged, a little confused. "Suit yourself, then," he said, and wrapped his arm around Carrie.

###

Spring 1922

"I need you to watch my routine," she begged him. Her delicate young girls' fingers gripped his lanky young boys' wrist and led him to stand in the middle of the stone driveway that led to his marvelous house. "And I need you to stand back a bit―like this, right here―so you can watch everything."

"But must I?" he whined. "I know nothing about ballet. You could prance around like a chimpanzee and I wouldn't know the difference."

"Oh, but please!" She clasped her hands together. "I think you will know the difference. I have a recital tomorrow, and I want to show you." Her voice wavered as she said, "I want to show you because you're my best friend. Even if you are a boy. Please, Jonah?"

His irritated expression melted, and his warm, friendly manners took over. "All right. For you, Ginnie."

She squealed in delight, knowing her about-to-cry treatment always worked with him. She ran up the steps in front of his house, using the white-painted wooden porch as a stage. Humming the melody to her song in her head, she counted off the beats and began her routine of leaps and spins.

When she had finished, she turned to face her one man audience, but heard two sets of hands applauding her. There, next to Jonah, stood Melvin Popescu, the local reverend's son, and the neighborhood bully that liked to hit Jonah and pull all the girls' hair. All the girls' hair, except Virginia's. Jonah did not looked pleased to have Melvin show up at random, especially while he was spending time with his friend. At least he never picks on Jonah while I'm around, she thought, and took a bow despite her confusion.

She leaped off the porch, disregarding the last three steps. "What brings you here, Melvin?" she spat, hands on her hips.

"Oh, nothin' special, Ginnie. I just was passing by and saw you spinning around all pretty on that porch. I stopped by to watch you." He gave Jonah a hard nudge from the side, not causing any immediate damage but promising more once Ginnie walked away to go home.

Strangely, Jonah didn't react. He seemed to have spaced out, staring with wide icy eyes off into nowhere. His hands twitched and he looked positively horrified. A line of thick, scarlet blood began to dribble from between his lips. Virginia gasped in alarm.

"Melvin!" she yelled. "Did you hit him?"She took a satiny white kerchief from her dress pocket and dabbed at the mute Jonah's chin.

"No I didn't! I swear I didn't!" cried Melvin.

Desperate, Virginia pulled down Jonah's lower lip and searched for a source of blood on the inside of his lips and teeth. They were as close as siblings, and she was alarmed and worried, so touching his mouth hardly felt awkward to her. He remained completely unresponsive, staring off and breathing heavily.

"There's no cuts or anything," she murmured. "Just…blood. You didn't see him cough, did you?" she asked Melvin, and he shook his head, debunking the possibility of tuberculosis.

Just then, Jonah seemed to snap out of his eerie trance. He blinked, and spit a few drops of bright red onto the ground. "What just―" he stammered. "I saw―I don't know. I thought I saw…"

Melvin's jaw dropped, and he began to jog away, saying something about "What a freak!" as he ran. Virginia gently led Jonah by his trembling shoulder into the Herrells' large, stately home and tended to the blood stains on the front of his shirt, reveling in horror from this bizarre incident.

Wendy lifted her eyelids open. She knew all too well who had just visited her in her dreams, and for the first time the spirit girl had openly revealed her name…as well as Jonah's. All of this made her want to ditch this Halloween business and pedal as fast as she could on her bike to Luke's house or the library.

She then noticed her left cheek was much warmer than the other. She was laying her head on something warm, and hard―bony, it seemed. And she could feel breath―warm, unscented breath.

Puzzled, she lifted her head, and met the eyes of the bloody-mouthed boy in her dream.

"I do hope you had a nice nap…" Jonah began, but Matt cut him off.

"Dude! Wendy! How on earth could you have fallen asleep during that movie! That was the freaking scariest movie ever! Seriously, you should have seen the way he sliced off her hand―just took a butcher knife and chopped it right off!"

"I guess I missed out," she murmured, nervously scooting herself away from Jonah.

###

Two movies and dozens of trick-or-treaters later, Carrie lifted her bright pink windbreaker off the coat hanger and grabbed her purse. "Bye-bye, everyone," she chirped. "Oh! And it was very nice meeting you, Jonah." The two awkwardly shook hands as Jonah gawked at her neon-blonde teased bangs, thinking How could that look possibly be found attractive these days?. "Hope you feel even better soon."

He cleared his throat, unable to suppress an uncomfortable blush. "Thank-you. It was, um, a pleasure meeting you, too."

She wandered out the door, and Matt followed her to drive her home. Which left Jonah and Wendy completely alone in the large, settling house. They shared a minute of uneasy eye contact. Finally Jonah summoned enough courage to ask the question that had been weighing on his tongue for some time since she'd awakened. "Wendy, while you were asleep…on my shoulder…Um, you appeared to be dreaming. May I ask what the dream was about?"

Wendy hesitated and stuttered over her words for a long time. "It was nothing, Jonah. I really don't remember a lot of it. Something dumb, I'm sure."

"I'm sorry, but I think you may be lying." He tried to look as serious as he could while remaining polite to the lady.

"No!" she said, appalled. "I―it wasn't anything. I'm serious. Well, no," she sighed as if admitting defeat. "I guess I did dream something significant…I dreamt about my family. My mom and dad and Mary. Yeah, that's what I dreamt about."

Although she still seemed to be holding up an uncomfortable shield, Jonah decided to back down. He dared not accuse her of lying again, once she had mentioned her family, which he feared were a sensitive, forbidden subject, for it bore the reason why she and Mary stayed with the Campbells. And he couldn't picture it as being a pleasant reason at all.

"Oh. I see." He forced a smile and nodded.

"Listen, Jonah, I'm real sorry I ended up sleeping on you…I don't even remember feeling tired. I guess I just…conked out. I'm sorry." As if without thinking, she reached up and gave his cheek three loving pats.

Jonah's face and ears caught fire. He remembered his mother blaming his quickness to blush on his pale complexion, and his father had said it was because he was just plain timid. Wendy retracted her hand and looked equally shocked at what she had just done, as if she hadn't meant to at all. As if something else, besides her own conscience, had willed her to touch him in such an endearing manner.

He glimpsed into her eyes then, and noticed how the certain way her doe-like eyes sparkled, sharply reminded him of one particular person from his past. They were so remarkably similar…he had to struggle to control his emotions from the memories those eyes struck. "Wendy…" he said, disregarding her earlier apology, "It's very late. I think I will head off to bed now. Good night."

"Me too. Good night."

###

Jonah flopped impatiently onto his other side in bed, sandwiching his head between his blanket and pillow to block out the noise. The place was not 100% clean of spirits. It never would be. What remained now were dozens of residual hauntings, unconscious movie scenes doomed to repeat themselves over and over again. While unintelligent beings incapable of thinking for themselves or contacting the living, the residual entities were vivid and they echoed continuously in Jonah's supernaturally sensitive ears.

"Don't you dare look at me like that, boy! This is part of your training, this is for your own good!" (A loud crash.) "Now fetch me the scalpel. We have work to do."

(A loud, harsh laugh. Unmistakably Aickman. He was obviously alone.) "What a remarkable talent. Surely I'll be rich! Oh, my dear Joseph, if only you were around to see this!...But then, you will! We shall bring you forth and speak to you soon…" (The noise is muffled, but it sounds like hysterical laughter mixed with tears.)

(One crashing noise after another punctuates the speech.): "But, sir! They want out…They do not wish to be trapped here!" (The voice yelps in pain.) "Please, Aickman, please! Their rage is ever growing―"

Among the many, many smaller noises and whispers, those three scenes were the loudest. The first pained Jonah, for it was his own horrible memory. The second puzzled him. Who was Joseph, and why did Aickman weep for him? The third was most painful, for it reminded Jonah of what he was unable to do alone and before he was burned, despite how hard he'd tried.

His perceptions of the residual hauntings destroyed his faint hope that he would lose his gifts upon the reincarnation. Lying in the hospital, he'd once fantasized about shedding his powers and living a normal person's life (it it sincerely was true that he just had to live at all). But no, his powers remained strong, perhaps even stronger, for he'd spent time on the other side of the valley and was ripped back.

So, Jonah pressed his hands to his ears (which provided little or no help, for the noises manifested in his head, not through his eardrums) and eventually, pure fatigue allowed him to fall asleep despite the voices…

Slowly, as if descending into thick quicksand, he sunk into a vague, blurry dream. The scene was dark, but seemed to glow. There were voices, or rather, a voice, whose screams were faint but gradually grew louder as the picture grew clearer. Then came the crackling, popping noises of a massive fire. Jonah was sure, though, that he was not re-experiencing his own death. The screams were not his (although they were from a post-pubescent male). In fact, the voice screamed in a different language entirely. The only words he understood were:

"Papa! Papa!"

Once the image had materialized, he saw what appeared to be a sort of living room, being eaten away by flames. A boy, no younger or older than Jonah, stood frozen in terror in the center of the room, trapped. He was dressed in clothing that appeared to be from the Edwardian era, perhaps in the years just before Jonah was born.

The boy looked up at the ceiling in desperation. Simultaneously, a loud splitting noise tore the air above. Terror filled the boy's eyes even more, and he howled a few times more for his Papa. Above him, the ceiling was beginning to split, crack, and cave in. It was only a matter of time before the burning flanks of the upper floor collapsed upon him.

Then, just as the ceiling finally gave way, Jonah's dream faded abruptly to black. Nothing but a bloodied, partially charred face remained. The left side of the head was gruesomely caved in and gushing blood. The burns and blisters were present but moderate; not nearly as bad as Jonah's had been. However, the face did look a lot like Jonah's own, except for two large differences: instead of cold eerie blue, the eyes were a dramatic forest green. His hair was a few shades lighter, and shorter, and the bangs were combed to the side away from his face, instead of cut straight across his forehead.

A sudden painful wrench in his stomach caused Jonah to jolt upright in bed. The face of the other boy remained in his mind.

###

Wendy kept yawning, but she knew she wasn't tired. She sat, legs folded, on her bed near the light of her nightstand lamp. She flipped between the printed newspaper articles about Virginia, reading their contents over and over.

She tried to recall every vivid detail of her latest vision. Jonah's shirt had been a dull mauve-ish color. Virginia's dress had been mid thigh-length, and had a green gingham pattern. But these details couldn't help her at all. What she reveled from most was the mention of a Melvin Popescu. Wendy puzzled over the many ways this kid could've been related to the Reverend.

In need of visual aid, she took out a piece of notebook paper and drew a circle and wrote Virginia inside of it. She drew two smaller circles above it and labeled them Melvin and Jonah and connected them with lines. Along the line that connected Virginia and Jonah, she labeled their relationship as, Childhood best friends, possibly teenage lovers. Connecting Virginia and Melvin, she wrote He has childhood crush on her, possibly teenage lovers. She decided to connect Jonah and Melvin with, Enemies. Wendy stared at her chart, waiting for something to dawn upon her.

Then it did.

MTP. Melvin T. Popescu. The initials on the locket.

Wendy considered, hypothetically, that perhaps Jonah and Virginia were romantically involved. After all, they were practically flirting already at age eleven, and Melvin and Jonah were developing a rivalry over her. Perhaps, after Jonah went away to work for Aickman, Melvin seized the opportunity and attempted to "steal" Virginia by giving her the necklace. However, Virginia could not bring herself to love Melvin as she had Jonah, which would explain why she'd repulsed the locket while crying for her "true lover."

Yes, it tied everything together and made perfect sense. But it still provided little answers regarding Virginia's tragic death, which is what had intrigued Wendy in the first place.

Decoding a giant piece of the puzzle didn't cure Wendy's insomnia like she'd hoped. It only made her more excited, and she figured she wouldn't be able to sleep at all until she called Luke to tell him everything about her discovery.