Chapter Thirty-Six

Like Clockwork

The next few weeks, for me at least, were filled with nothing but work. I spent hours on end in the basement refining my skills, timing myself down to the millisecond to beat my previous scores. I did every single bit of extra credit for school and all of my homework, and I even read ahead in several of the chapters. I researched ghost-hunting non-stop on the school computers in the library, often staying until after the late buses left so that my dad had to come get me. I told him I had a project to do. This, in a way, was the truth- I was working on myself.

Deyton and Kaylie did help a little bit. They helped me time, they helped me study, and they forced me to go to bed when it was midnight and I was still up studying Spanish vocabulary. Most of all, I think they enjoyed being together all the time. Deyton now ate lunch with us instead of Eric (who took refuge with the rest of the chess club on the other side of the cafeteria) and he spent most of the time with Kaylie and I when we were watching TV or playing games. He even bought a Nintendo DS so that he could pictochat with Kaylie when I was rambling about ghosts.

And yet, it was the end of April and I still had not touched the portal. I knew it had something to do with everything, and yet I couldn't put my finger on it. To tell the truth, I was afraid of it. What if I went in and never came out? Or if my parents caught me going in or coming out? Or what if it ate ghosts or something? I couldn't go in it without considering these things. So here I was, in the prime of Saturday, with a lovely spring day outside (just cool enough to not make you break a sweat, but warm enough to go without a jacket) and I was up in the attic, searching through musty old boxes.

It was the box labeled "Ghost Crap", where I had gotten my information before. I figured that if I backtracked, maybe I would find something I hadn't seen before. The sun filtered through the grimy dormer window panes, illuminating all the dust particles in the air. The treetops reached towards the sky just outside, and the sound of Kaylie and Deyton's voices drifted up toward me.

I opened up the old window. It must not have been opened for a hundred years or so. The dust poured into my nose, making me cough and sneeze in a fit. Finally, after my eyes stopped watering and my throat stopped tickling, I peered down at the lawn.

I almost laughed out loud. There were Kaylie and Deyton, out on the winding driveway. Deyton was trying to teach Kaylie how to skateboard. She was standing on top of the board, her ankles wobbling back and forth as she tried to stabilize herself. She clutched Deyton's shoulders for dear life, and he held on to her around the waist.

"Don't let me go!" she laughed.

"Like I ever could do that," he responded.

"I bet you would," Kaylie joked. "I'm sure you would just love to see me fall on my butt."

"I can't believe you could say such a thing!" Deyton said. "I couldn't do that to you!"

"Sure…" she said, not believing it.

"Fine, if you don't trust me, maybe I will just let you go." Deyton took his hands off of Kaylie, who shook dangerously before completely falling into Deyton, grabbing him around the neck. He stumbled backwards several steps, but gained his hold on Kaylie. The board had rolled away.

"I knew you would let go," she said.

"Well, I had to let you go sometime," he said. "Maybe that was just a little too soon."

"You think?" Kaylie said sarcastically. "At least you caught me, though."

"Kaylie," Deyton said, looking into her eyes, "I'll always catch you." He still had her in midair. Kaylie paused, then leaned over and kissed him gently on the cheek.

"I think you can let me down now," she said. "I'm ready to give it another go."

"Good," Deyton said. "As long as you don't fall on me again."

"What, you saying you can't even carry ninety pounds?" Kaylie laughed. "Come on, Deyton, you're tougher than that!"

"Oh, you're in for it…" he said maliciously. He started to chase Kaylie, who was much faster, but I assumed it was more the idea of the game that was fun more than the advantage Kaylie had over Deyton of being smaller and faster.

I sighed and turned back to my attic. I shouldn't even have been watching them. It was distracting me from my work, and, worst of all, it only reminded me of Eric. I couldn't think about Eric anymore. He was off limits to my mind.

I began searching through the boxes again. I pulled out the photo album I had found the picture of Danni in and began to look at it again, starting where I left off.

I looked at my parents, around sixteen, finally together by the looks of it. Another happy couple. I slammed the album shut, sending out a mushroom cloud of dust into my mouth, and shoved it aside.

Next there was a yellowing piece of folded up paper. I opened it up, careful not to let it crumble in my hands.

It appeared to be a map of some kind, though not of anyplace I'd been before. Written all over was my mother's handwriting, marking places like "Skulker's Lair" and "Fright Knight's Castle." It looked almost like a map of an amusement park- an amusement park I would never go to. But somewhere in my mind, the names on the paper rang a bell. I remembered the CD I had found with all of the names of ghosts on it. Skulker, Fright Knight, both had been on the list. This was a map of where they lived, and I would bet whatever dignity I had left on the fact that it was behind the walls of that portal.

I sat up. Deyton and Kaylie had to see this- finally, we could go beyond the portal with some certainty of what was behind it. I took off down the stairs and out the front door, the paper still clutched in my hand.

"Deyton! Kaylie!" Both were sitting in the driveway, obviously worn out by whatever the heck they had been doing earlier. You know what, I didn't even want to know what they had been doing earlier.

"What?" Deyton asked, as if I had completely interrupted him, which I guess I had, in a way, but he wasn't doing anything that I cared about anyway. I continued on as if he was actually interested.

"Look what I found up in the attic," I said, holding up the folded piece of paper.

"Wow!" Deyton exclaimed sarcastically. "Moldy paper! If you think that's great, then I'm pretty sure I have some stale French fries up in my room that you would love."

"Okay, first of all, ew," I responded. Kaylie laughed. "And second of all, it's not a moldy piece of paper! It's a map of what's behind the portal. Now we can find out where all the ghosts come from, and what's really back there."

"Even with that map, Ellie, it's still really dangerous," Kaylie said as if I was crazy to even think of going, which I probably was, but still. "You may know where those places are, but you can't be sure what they are. It could be some kind of black hole that just swallows you up and spits you out in the nineteen thirties or something."

"Like that would ever happen," I said. "And besides, I'm not going to be sucked into a black hole because you guys are going with me."

"What?" they both said at once.

----------------------

"I can't believe you talked us into this," Deyton said incredulously.

"Don't be such a sissy," I responded. "We're in, we look around, we check out the black holes, and we're out. Nothing to worry about. Besides, I'll be with you. They wouldn't hurt another ghost."

"Wow, I feel so safe," he said. "Maybe you can shield us with your mediocre ghost powers."

Before I could even respond, Kaylie hit Deyton in the back of the head. He merely whimpered slightly and shut up.

"Are you ready?" I asked, holding my finger over the "Open" button.

Deyton looked ready to shout out "No", but Kaylie was ready and retaliated with a definitive "Yes." I pushed the button.

Swirls of green mist faced us, with hints of other things behind it in the background. I transformed into my ghost form and held out a hand to either side for Deyton and Kaylie to take. Together, we all walked into the ghost zone.

It almost appeared like we were walking on nothing, which obviously scared my two "comrades." I was used to flying, and it even creeped me out. I looked around and behind me, back at our basement, and then into the mist.

"Kaylie, let me see the map," I asked. Kaylie handed it to me, and I began to try and figure out where we were.

"Okay, we saw it, let's go back now," Deyton pleaded, and Kaylie nodded.

"For goodness sake, we haven't seen anything but mist yet," I added. "We need to see what's beyond this." When they still looked utterly frightened, I explained, "Okay, I'll make you a deal. We will only go as far as…" I inspected the map, "…Clockwork's Tower. From what I can get from this map, it should be the first one we come across."

"And if it turns out to be a black hole leading to a parallel dimension?" Kaylie asked.

"Then you may say 'I told you so' for the rest of eternity, okay?" I responded. This, apparently, did not comfort either of them, but at least I had made them a reasonable deal, in my opinion.

We continued along the pathway of the green mist towards what looked to me to be some sort of tower like what was on the map. As we approached, I was almost certain that I saw a clock at the top of it.

"Look!" I exclaimed. "And you thought it was a black hole."

"How do you know it's not?" Deyton said. "It could be a really smart black hole, and it's just disguising itself so it can lure you into the fourth dimension of no return."

"There's no such thing as a fourth dimension of no return," I said.

"How do you know, Ellie, how can you be sure?" Deyton was in a state of panic.

"Oh, suck it up, Deyton, you can freak out once we go inside," I scoffed.

"WHAT?" he yelled. "No way in heck am I going in that thing!"

"Well, then, I guess you can just wait outside, alone, while Kaylie and I go in," I said. Kaylie looked at me doubtfully, as if she was having her own doubts about going in.

As doubtful as my friend and my cowardly cousin were, we still approached the floating clock tower. Kaylie began to shake horribly and Deyton's eyes darted from side to side as if looked for an escape route. I, on the other hand, didn't much care. The adrenaline pumping through me increasing with each step I took, and by the time we were at the huge oak doors, I felt completely invincible.

Deyton, Kaylie and I looked up the tower. It stood hundreds of feet above us, floating in midair, made of cold hard stone. The doors alone reached up like, two stories. I couldn't remember ever feeling so small in comparison. I listened carefully- behind the door there were a few voices, seemingly shouting, but I couldn't make out what they were saying; and, of course, the unmistakable sound of ticking clocks and turning cogs.

I raised my hand to knock on the door confidently.

"Wait!" Kaylie yelled. "Ellie, this isn't a good idea. You don't know what's in there or who's in there or what they're doing in there. They could be waiting for someone like you to come along so they can-"

I was skeptical, so I cut in, "Can what?"

"So they can, I dunno, pull out your eyeballs and make them into soup or something!" Deyton reached up and felt his eyes, as if saying goodbye to them. Kaylie continued, "The point is, you have no idea what you're getting-"

The door swung open slightly, creaking on its hinges with a noise that chilled me right to the bone.

"-into," Kaylie finished very quietly.

I felt like turning tail and running back home. All invincibility I had once had drained from me and was replaced with the strong urge to run. But yet, I couldn't seem to move my feet, and neither could Deyton or Kaylie. We were stuck.

A shadow appeared behind the door. It was very dimly lit in the tower, and I couldn't make out their face. Whoever it was, they were only about my height, and were slouching slightly in a depressed sort of way.

"Come in," they said, "Welcome to Clockwork's Tower."

A doorman?

"Well, come in, or I'm shutting this door because you're letting the heat out," whoever it was said. For some reason, my feet chose that moment to move. Forward.

Deyton and Kaylie followed me in, completely dazed themselves. The floor was cold hard marble, and I could hear the ticking louder than ever. I looked upwards- millions upon millions of cogs were ticking together all around me. Gold ones, silver ones, small ones, large ones that had to be fifty feet in diameter were all ticking happily together everywhere.

"I see you noticed the cogs," the doorman said. "At my last count, we had three million two hundred ninety six thousand eight hundred and sixty five. But that was only this morning, so Clockwork could have added on more."

"You're not Clockwork?" Kaylie asked.

"No!" Not-Clockwork said forcefully. "I'm-"

"TICK-TOCK!" a loud booming voice came from somewhere, echoing off of the stone walls and floor. Not-Clockwork sighed.

"Come with me," he said, leading us through an enormous archway into a slightly more well-lit room.

This room didn't look a whole lot different from the last. Thousands more cogs surrounded us on the walls. The only difference besides the lighting was the fact that there was another person- ghost- whatever here.

He was sitting on a rather elaborate chair. The man was a pale shade of blue green, with a purple cloak draped around him. A large staff was leaning against the chair, which he floated just above in a sitting position. He got up and picked up his staff, but what really shocked me was that he changed shape- all of a sudden, he was old. Kaylie gasped slightly next to me.

"Yeah, everyone's always real impressed with that trick," Not-Clockwork said.

"Tick-Tock! I told you a million times to answer the door on time-" the changing man began.

"And I told you a million times to not call me Tick-Tock, Uncle Colin!" Not-Tick-Tock/ Clockwork began. "My name is-"

"I know full well what your name is, but in here you are Tick-Tock!" the changing man said angrily. "When we are at work, you are no longer my nephew and I am no longer your uncle! We are master and apprentice, do you hear me?"

"Full well, Uncle Colin," Tick-Tock said, testing his waters a little too much if you ask me.

The changing man made an extremely angry noise and yelled at Tick-Tock again, "Go count the cogs!"

"Again?" the apprentice asked.

"Yes, again! I have since added more cogs from this morning and you need to count them!"

"I don't see why you just can't remember how many you put on and just add instead of telling me to do it…" Tick-Tock mumbled, walking away. "Master of All Time and you can't even do a simple math problem…"

"Maybe we could come back another time…" Deyton asked quietly.

"No, you will not come back another time, I will see you now," the Master of All Time said. "Welcome to my tower, I am Clockwork, Master of All Time! And, of course, you've already met my apprentice, Tick-Tock-"

From somewhere high above us Tick-Tock screamed at his uncle, "My name is not Tick-Tock! It's Joe! Joe Santanowitz!"

"That doesn't sound like counting cogs to me!" Clockwork yelled up at him.

"If you don't like your apprentice, then why did you hire him?" Kaylie asked Clockwork.

"Because he's also my nephew," he responded. "My sister Cogitha made me take him. If I didn't, then she refused to do the Christmas parties anymore. Do you have any idea what it's like to have to spend every day with a relative that annoys you that much?"

"I have an idea of what it feels like," I said, shooting a glance at Deyton, who stuck out his tongue.

"No, I have seen your future, and you have no clue," Clockwork said. We all looked at each other and shrugged. Clockwork continued to talk. "So, what have you come to ask me about, Ellie, Kaylie and Deyton?"

"How do you know our names?" I asked.

"I know everything, Ellie," he said. "I know more about your past, your present and your future than you will ever know. It's one of the perks of this job."

"Yeah, in a creepy stalker sort of way…" Deyton mumbled under his breath.

"Anyway, I know that you have come here for no reason at all," Clockwork explained. I didn't even want to know how he knew that. "But, I still have something to show you."

We all looked at each other again, wishing we had fled before when we had had the chance. "What do you want to show us?" I asked, only half-wanting to know the answer.

"Ellie, you don't know much about your father, do you?" he asked.

I was taken aback. "I know a lot about my dad," I said.

"Sure, you may think that you do," Clockwork said. "But really, you don't. Do you know that your grandparents hunted your father because they didn't know that he was their son? Do you know that your father dated another girl before your mother? Do you know that Vlad Plasmius, your father's arch enemy, was in love with your grandmother?"

"Ew!" Deyton and I yelled together. "I did not need to know that!"

"Yes, you do!" Clockwork said. "You need to know everything in order to understand anything. Because what you don't know right now, Ellie Fenton, could very easily kill you."

I stared at Clockwork, and at the numerous cogs. "Okay then," I said, trying to stay calm. "What don't I know?"

I could tell Clockwork had been building up to this. "I believe that you should find that out on your own," he said. "I can't tell you, or he may come after me. The future would be ruined, and I would have no way of stopping it."

Why did people keep talking like this? Everyone kept telling me that I was in danger, that I should watch out, that he would find me… but I had no way of knowing what was meant by it. Who was he, and why did I have to be so careful? I was sick and tired of being told I should know something but never being told what it was. I was tired of not knowing everything.

"But then how am I supposed to know? How am I supposed to not be killed over this? You're not making any sense! You tell me I need to know something but then don't even tell me what it is! I thought you had something important to show us, but now you're not even going to bother," I said to Clockwork.

"Cool your temper, Ellie," he said. "That's what got you into your predicament in the first place, was it not?"

"We're not here to talk about how I got into this predicament," I said. "From the impression you gave me, I thought you were going to tell me how to get out."

"You're jumping to conclusions again," Clockwork said. "You have a tendency to do that. I never said that I wasn't going to show you what you need to know."

"I'm confused," Deyton said. "You said you were going to tell her, and then you said you weren't, and now you saying you are again! Are you going to show us anything or not?"

"Yes," he said, "and no."

"That doesn't help!" Deyton exclaimed.

"You are easily confused, Deyton," Clockwork said. "But we're not here to talk about that."

"What are we here to talk about?" Kaylie asked.

"Now, I'm not really supposed to show you anything because that would put everyone and the future in danger," Clockwork said. "But, let's just say that you found some medallions that would help you get to the future on the floor." Clockwork dropped three medallions on the floor with an odd insignia on them. He gestured that we pick them up. We each took one. "And let's just say I also left a piece of paper with the name of who is threatening you with the medallions." He dropped a paper on the floor, and I took it. "And let's just say that I left the tower on official business and left Joe- I mean Tick-Tock- in charge, and he took you into the past to see what you needed to see. Now, nobody would really be at fault, because Joe is merely an apprentice and doesn't know what he's doing-"

"Yes I do!" a voice yelled.

"Count your cogs!" Clockwork yelled before continuing. "And I wouldn't be at fault because I wasn't even here, and it was only an accident I left those things lying out. So, do you get what I'm saying?"

Kaylie and I nodded. Deyton took a moment to think before nodding.

"Good," he said, and then looked up. "TICK-TOCK! GET DOWN HERE!"

Joe appeared from behind a mass of cogs. I could now see him properly: he didn't look a whole lot different from a normal teenager, except for the fact that he had bluish skin like Clockwork and grey-ish hair. He wore normal clothes and had a stopwatch around his neck with the same type of insignia that the medallions had on them.

"I thought you wanted me to count cogs!" he said. "I wasn't even past five-thousand yet!"

"Nevermind that," Clockwork said. "I need you to take these people into the past."

"Finally, and excuse to get out of here," Joe said. "But where am I supposed to take them?"

"I believe it's all on this paper that I accidentally left lying around," he answered, handing Joe a sheet of paper. "Just- be careful."

"I know, I've done this before," Joe said.

"I've never given you permission before," Clockwork responded.

"Erm, well, maybe you just… um… forgot…" he said, shifting his eyes back and forth. "Well, see you later Uncle Colin!"

"You're counting cogs when you get back!"

"Aren't I always…" Joe mumbled, then looked at us. "Are you ready?"

"I guess so," I said. "But I still don't think we know exactly what we're doing."

"Oh, you will," Joe said. He took his stopwatch in his hand and clicked a button on the side. Suddenly a small round portal-like thing appeared in midair, filled with mist. He clicked a few other buttons, and an image appeared.

It was Amity Park. Not the Amity Park I had known, but I could still tell what it was. I recognized the Nasty Burger, only it was painted differently, and the high school, which I had never gone to but knew what it looked like. In this scene the big addition had not been put on it yet, and all the houses were painted different colors.

"Welcome to Amity Park, during the time of Danny Phantom," Joe said. "Well, during the early days of Danny Phantom. When he was only a teenager, I guess I should say."

So this was what Amity Park looked like to my dad. I recognized Fenton Works, with its huge tower on top. That was where he lived.

"So we're going back to Ellie's old town?" Kaylie asked.

"Yep," Joe responded.

"But we're going back to when Uncle Danny and my mom were teenagers?" Deyton asked.

"Yep," Joe responded again.

"And we're going to go through that portal into that time and see them?" I inquired.

"Wow, you guys are really slow on the uptake," Joe said.

"I told you there was a hole that takes you to another time and place!" Deyton exclaimed.

"Yeah, but it doesn't lead to the fourth dimension of no return, now, does it?" Kaylie said.

"Okay, I have no clue what you guys are talking about, but can we go already?" Joe asked.

"Let's go," I said.

"Before I change my mind," Deyton added.

Joe stepped through the portal, disappearing. Kaylie stepped in after him, and then Deyton. I took one last look at Clockwork, who gestured to go through. Whatever was behind this portal, I had to find out. I stepped through.

A/N: This is what happens to Clockwork when he's stuck with Joe all day! I had a lot of fun making up Joe Santanowitz and just had to include him. In the next chapter, "Time's A-Wasting" (corny, I know), Ellie and Kaylie and Deyton and Joe are all in Danny's Amity Park. This should get interesting...

Until next update,

Rachel