A/N:" Ummm...It's been kind of a long time. So long, I don't even have an excuse anymore. It's late, I've been working really hard for two days straight to get this uploaded before Christmas, and I don't feel like writing a long AN. I hope I haven't lost my readers/reviewers over the months. :\

Everything else aside, Enjoy the chapter, as usual. :)

Through his blurry vision, Jonah managed to read, 3:26 AM, from the glowing alarm clock that sat on the nightstand between his bed and Matt's. With a yawn, he groggily pulled himself out from under the blankets, and ascended the stairs. He never used the downstairs bathroom at night, or whenever Matt was down there with him, for his obsessive fear that Matt would be able to hear him through the thin door. He'd also amended himself to wearing long pants to bed after the embarrassing incident with Wendy.

Wendy…

Jonah caught himself sucking in a breath, as if to sigh dreamily, but he stopped himself and calmly exhaled through his nose.

In the upstairs bathroom, he turned to the sink to wash his hands, and took some time to eye himself judgmentally in the mirror―a habit of his, since he'd been reincarnated. He liked to search his face for the slightest difference, the most insignificant change from his previous life, a single feature the ritual may have changed. Perhaps his cheekbones were higher, his nose the tiniest degree crooked. He always failed to find anything.

What he did notice tonight, though, was that his bangs had grown―they were getting too long. The ends almost touched his eyelashes. His eyebrows were completely buried. He also noticed that the sore red blemish on his left cheek that'd appeared the day before he died was gone and healed now.

He reached up with his still-wet hands and used his finger to part his hair off to the side, brush his bangs away, and press it into place with the moisture. He looked so odd, he thought. It'd been forever since he'd had his hair like that. He used to wear it side-parted every day. His father would always use so much fixture to secure it in place that his hair felt like plastic. Then, when he turned fourteen, his mother said he had a face meant for bangs―even though his father thought it looked improper.

"Papa…" Jonah muttered, a knot twisting in his chest now. He hadn't thought about his parents much. He'd been too preoccupied with accepting his reincarnation in the first place, then with Virginia and Wendy, and just everything else. He never realized how much he missed them, how much he missed everyone. Even Aickman.

His eyes, nose, and throat burned, and he wanted to cry again. It had been a steady five days since his humiliating spillage over Virginia, and he had not really expressed too much emotion in that time.

He wondered what became of his family after he died. They must've saw the article from the paper; maybe a police officer did them the courtesy of properly informing them of his disappearance. What did they do after that? Did they pick up and move out, or did they stay in Goatswood? Did they even stay married?…Jonah knew they were dead now, and had been for years, even if they'd lived to be very old. This knowledge―and still not knowing enough―broke his heart. There were so many things he wanted to know, wanted to ask them.

Then, to interrupt his thoughts, he became enveloped in a moment of sharp awareness. Not pain, but the split-second feeling between incident and pain where one knows what happened, and is waiting for the pain to flare up at any―

Jonah gasped sharply in sudden agony. He ground his teeth together to prevent himself from screaming. The blistering sting crept from his fingertips to his hands and covered his arms. It began to engulf his legs and torso. Strangely, in all of it, he couldn't cry out―it was like his mouth was clamped irreversibly shut, his voice box lost at sea, his throat filled with a scalding acid.

His reflection in the bathroom mirror disappeared from his vision. Replacing it was the snarling, menacing burnt face of the boy―the one from earlier―the boy yelling for his father. He opened his mouth disturbingly, unnaturally wide and cried out once again.

Abruptly, Jonah's vision was interrupted as quickly as he'd been introduced to it. The boy's unearthly scream suddenly turned into the yelp of a startled prepubescent boy. Jonah snapped out of his trance to find himself no longer in front of the bathroom sink, but in the upstairs hallway not too far from his―Wendy's―bedroom. He glanced stupidly around the room until he located the source of the new scream. Billy winced away from him, his face a depiction of sheer horror. What was he so scared of? Had Billy seen the vision too―?

Wendy burst from her bedroom then, her eyes clouded with fatigue and confusion. "What is going on?" she demanded.

Billy cried out again and rushed to Wendy's side. He gripped frantically at her satin pajama shirt for protection. "Billy! What're you―Jonah?" She glared back and forth between the boys, perplexed to the point of fear.

Jonah remained frozen with his mouth open, failing to locate appropriate words. Truthfully, he couldn't explain the situation because he had no idea what was going on, either.

"Billy…" Wendy moaned, "it's just Jonah. You don't have to get so freaked out."

" 'It's just Jonah?' " Billy said. "I don't care if he's technically alive now; I'm still not okay with a dead kid wandering the house in the middle of the night!" He stared directly at Jonah as he spat the words "dead kid" into the air.

Jonah winced―So that was it. Billy had screamed because he was afraid of him, running into him in a silent dark hallway. Jonah felt sick to his stomach; he just wanted to tip over and die again. I've always frightened children, he thought miserably. Children and adults alike.

Wendy scolded her cousin's behavior with words that escaped Jonah's perception in the midst of his wallowing thoughts. She then escorted him back to bed. When she returned, she wore an expression of deep concern. "Tired?" she asked him. He shook his head no, and she took his wrist and led him into her purple-walled bedroom. Instead of turning on the main ceiling lights, she flicked on the blue beaded lamp at her bedside. It filled the room with a calm glow that created shadows and silhouettes―Jonah liked it because it excused him from making direct eye contact.

"What happened?" she murmured.

"I don't know," he said, feeling stupid. "The last thing I remember―I was by the bathroom sink, and I saw something, a vision―and suddenly I found myself in the hallway, and Billy was screaming…" Wendy opened her mouth to ask a barrage of questions, but he stopped her with, "I don't want to talk about it right now. I'd rather figure it out for myself before I describe it, and as of now I have no idea…"

Wendy looked ready to protest, but she backed down and remained silent.

Jonah walked to the other side of the room, running his hand over the spot where the mural once was. "What a change," he said.

###

Wendy nodded in passive agreement to Jonah's statement. She watched those striking eyes move up and down the wall as they transported him back sixty years to the room that contained the mural. Her heart thudded in her chest; she could feel its pulse reverberating throughout her whole body, even in her fingertips. She could remember all too well the last time she and Jonah were alone in her bedroom; rather, alone at all.

"Yet here's a spot…" he said, sounding very detached from reality, "Out, damned spot! Out, I say!...Here's the smell of blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand…" He turned to her and with a small smile, said, "Rather―wall."

"Shakespeare," she whispered, too stunned to return the smile. "Macbeth."

"Indeed. It means there's no way to erase the troubles of the past―no matter how much one tries to mask it. The birds still linger here, somewhere." Something dark passed behind his eyes, and he became very solemn. His gaze rested upon the carpeted floor. "And the poison, spilled over the wooden boards."

Eerie chills travelled up her spine and Wendy held her breath. Virginia. Instinctively she reached out and touched his shoulder.

"D'you think she's buried in the nearby cemetery?" he asked. His tone had returned to normal and his poetic manner of speaking was completely gone now.

She swallowed hard. "I don't know, Jonah…We could look someday." Immediately she regretted suggesting that.

"Soon. Perhaps we could look for my parents there as well. I hate to burden you with such a task, but as you're the only one who knows what's going on, and you're the only one whom I can trust to give me adequate amounts of privacy…"

"Of course," she said flatly. In all truthfulness, she really didn't want to take him to Virginia's gravesite. She couldn't bear to watch him break down again like he had before. And his parents would be involved, too. But she couldn't find it in herself take back her offer―after all, he was right: she wasthe only one he could trust to take him.

Jonah thanked her many times, until the words began to be interrupted with yawns, and he retreated back to bed. Wendy watched him go; she yearned so desperately to set his head in her lap again, but knew morning was rapidly approaching and it wouldn't be a good idea.

###

That morning, Jonah awoke to find the basement only dimly lit with sunrise; Matt's body remained a breathing lump underneath his covers. Jonah sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes, musing at how at first he could never get enough sleep―now he was plagued with insomnia.

Despite some hesitation stemming from last night's events, he pulled himself out of bed. Quietly, as not to disturb Matt, he pulled on a long-sleeved tee shirt and oversized hand-me-down jeans which relied on a belt to keep from falling to his ankles.

He could hear the sizzling of a frying pan upstairs―Sara up bright and early preparing breakfast for her family. Jonah felt a rush of fondness for her―even his own mother waited to start breakfast until both he and his father had woken and dressed. He quickly chased the thought away, however, for he'd forbidden himself from thinking about his parents, until he could (hopefully) visit their graves and gain some closure.

Upstairs, he found Sara in the kitchen as he'd expected, smiling and humming as she scrambled an egg. She heard his footsteps and turned. Her face lit up joyfully when her eyes locked on him, and she rushed over to give him a hug, which Jonah stiffly backed out of. She gave him an odd look, but didn't bother him about it, for she knew why he did so―she wasn't his mother, she couldn't replace Alma Herrell. He didn't want to be touched.

"Good morning," she said, and went back to the stove.

He replied, "Good morning." He realized then, that on the night he'd had his breakdown over Virginia, Matt had told them they were expecting a "surprise" from Sara and Peter that very night…which never came. "Sara?" he asked, eyebrows knitted.

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"Weren't we…supposed to have a 'surprise' a few days ago? Some news that never arrived?"

Jonah sensed a presence behind him. "Well, how convenient that you asked," said a voice suddenly, causing Jonah to jump ever so slightly. Peter arrived at Jonah's left and ruffled his uncombed black hair as he walked by. "We were going to announce it," he continued, "but first, we need your help. What a better time to ask you than now?"

Jonah swallowed. "My help?" What could they possibly want with him? He had the sickest feeling it had something to do with his clairvoyance.

Peter cleared his throat, while Sara quietly faded into the background to let her husband do all the explaining. "When we left that night, we drove about a mile out east of town to look at a new house. This house is beautiful, big―all of you kids could each have your own bedroom―and…old. Now, from our previous experiences involving old houses, we'd like to have the house…looked at, to check and see if there's…anything in there."

"You don't have to edit your words with me," Jonah said, irritated. "I know what you're after. You found an old house and you want me to use my powers to see if it's haunted, so you don't get stuck having to help anyone like you did last time."

"That's not what we mean, sweetie," cooed Sara. "It's just―"

Jonah interrupted her, "I know, I know. I understand your point." He actually didn't, but he wasn't about to sit through her explanation. "In fact―I'd rather this 'new house' of ours isn't haunted, either." That, however, was true. Secretly, his heart rejoiced at the notion of getting a different house: no more basement, no more bad memories, no more vivid residual hauntings of himself getting smacked around.

"So," Peter said, rubbing his hands together like an eager businessman settling a deal, "shall we check it out today, while we're out getting your new clothes?"

"Oh, God, I nearly forgot about that…" Jonah moaned. What an awful day this will be, he thought. Not the most awful, but pretty far up there, I predict.

###

"Wendy!" Matt waved his hand between Wendy's face and the book she had it buried in to get her attention. "They're gone."

It took her a moment or two to realize what he was getting at. She nervously set her book down and began filling him in. Matt's jaw dropped immediately and stayed that way throughout the whole story. At one point, he had to stop her and just think for a minute or two so he could let his whirling thoughts catch up to the new information.

"And last night," she sighed finally in closure, "he told me he was having visions."

"What kind of visions?"

Wendy shook her head. "He wouldn't specify. But apparently they made him sleepwalk or something. Billy ran into him in the middle of the night and freaked out. I could tell Jonah felt really bad…"

Matt only gave this a moment's thought and a concerned shake of the head, for he'd had what he liked to call a "light bulb epiphany"―he had an idea on how to help close up some of the mysteries surrounding Jonah's past. "Wendy," he gasped, "I've got it! You said you found all this neat stuff in your friend's basement…well, we have a completely un-fire-damaged basement of our own. With old cabinets. And stuff."

She mulled this over for a moment, then she looked up. "You wanna?"

"If I didn't want to, I wouldn't have brought it up."

###

1…2…3! Wendy tugged as hard as she could on the dusty cabinet handle. She leaned her whole weight against it. After a few grueling seconds, the door came flying open, which sent the crouching Wendy onto the floor rather dramatically. "Ouch!" she cried, examining her left index finger. Her nail was broken very short, and a tiny spot of blood emerged from her cuticle. She sucked on it for a moment until the sting subsided.

"I told you to let me do it," Matt said as he pulled the contents from the cabinet. They wrinkled their noses at the musty, decaying smell that emanated from the objects.

Wendy sighed and opened a small tin box. Inscribed on the inside was, Penny Street Café, Hartford, Connecticut― 1909, but it was otherwise empty. Matt quickly searched through the remainder of the objects, which all turned out to be souvenir-like trinkets as well.

She allowed Matt to open the rest of the cabinets. One was empty, one contained more crazy morticians' tools. "I don't think we're going to find too much," she said regretfully as he worked on the fourth cabinet.

"Don't be such a wet blanket, Wendy." He looked at her and grinned. Then the smirk disappeared. "I'm sorry. That was lame," he muttered, giving an enormous final tug on the cabinet door. It flew open in typical fashion, and an avalanche of musty, yellow-paged books tumbled out. Some were thick, heavy hardcovers, some were paperbacks with pieces of the flimsy covers ripped away.

Wendy picked one of the hardcovers up and read the title. "Thus Spoke Zarathustra." She opened it and flipped to the title page. In elegant, loopy cursive so fancy she struggled to make it out, it read, J.W. Herrell, Birthday gift, Aged Fifteen. "Jonah's book!" she gasped. She picked up another, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. Jonah W. Herrell―Trip to Albany, New York―1921. In awe, she searched through the collection of recognizable classic titles. "What are all of Jonah's books doing here?" she wondered aloud.

"Maybe Aickman confiscated them…" Matt theorized, which made perfect sense. He held one of the paperbacks in his hand.

"What's that one you've got?" she inquired.

He handed her the book. "It's not a book book, like a novel. It's a journal. Handwritten. But I can't read it. Why did everyone have such damn fancy handwriting back then?"

Wendy took it from him with a roll of her eyes. "Let me do it." She opened it to a random page about a quarter into the journal, and read aloud,

"Dearest Josef,

Happy birthday, my beautiful son. It's a powerful shock to think that you would be twenty-four years of age on this day. Perhaps married with a baby boy of your own by now. Only God knows where your mother Marja is. Last I heard, she resided in our native Rättvik, but that was years ago. Never mind, however. Perhaps she is writing letters to you also and you know all about her.

I wanted to tell you about how, the other day, I saw the handsomest young boy in the town square the other day. He had to have been about six or seven years old, and he looked just like you did at that age. In fact, when I first laid eyes upon him, I swore I was seeing your ghost! His mother had just bought him some sweets, and I related with the woman―how could one not spoil such a precious child?

If only I could send you some birthday chocolates where you are, now.

Sincerest love,

Your father Ramsey."

The cousins were silent .

###

Jonah had a piercing headache. The stimulus around him was too much, too much. He felt as though his brain were about to implode on itself from all this strangeness, all these foreign ideas and contraptions he'd once viewed as inconceivable. It didn't help that the car was on the road again, shooting down the road faster than he cared to know. The fast car rides were, Jonah feared, something he'd never get used to.

"I'm tired," he suddenly blurted to Sara and Peter.

Peter assured him, "We're almost there. Just give the house a quick once-over and you can go home and rest."

"You're doing great, Jonah. You're handling the adjustment very well," Sara said. Jonah didn't believe her. Surely he hadn't looked normal at the shopping mall, gawking at the people, the fashions, all the things that moved on their own, and the lights, so many lights…

He ignored Sara and mustered the courage to glance out the car window. Everything whipped by at a speed that made his stomach swoop, but he recognized the way―groups of randomly scattered Victorian neighborhoods along ill-kept county roads. "What does this house look like?" he asked.

"It's big, white clapboard siding, tall white pillars in the front. It looks sort of like a Southern plantation estate. Wonderful house, it just needs fixing up."

Jonah's blood ran cold, driven through his body by a startled pounding heart. He knew exactly where they were going. He suppressed his mournful whimpers, hand clamped over his mouth until they pulled up the driveway―which was now gravel. He bit his tongue, clenched his hands into fists, held his breath―anything to conceal his emotions from the Campbells.

Its striking grandeur had faded some due to years of abandonment, but pure sentimentality made Jonah's knees weak and shaky. Here it was―he'd returned, finally.

Blindly, he wandered up the desolate stone pathway toward the house, trying his hardest not to break into a run. Sara and Peter followed him, which he did not want. He stopped, turned to them, and managed a steady voice. "I'd rather be alone for this task. It'll make things easier with no other presences besides myself in the house." Really, there was no truth to this statement―he knew how to differentiate between a living soul and a dead one―but he couldn't bear to let them watch him. He knew that, once inside his former home, his feelings would be impossible to control. The married couple reluctantly agreed.

With trembling hands, Jonah turned the knob.