A/N: Hey everyone! Well, last I checked I had 5 reviews and I'd like to thank all of you!! It's so great to have people appreciate my writing enough to review it. Thanks again, you five! Oh, and Arda Silverlace and Mystique Angelique asked if Amy was going to meet Suze or Paul soon. In answer, yes, she most certainly will, but not in this chapter. She will, however, meet- well, you'll just have to read! Don't worry, Mystique Angelique, you didn't creep me out... too much! Oh, this whole chapter is in 3rd person, not Amy's or anyone else's POV.

Disclaimer: This time I only own Amy, Lea, Ms. Helane and Amy's parents.

Enjoy!

Amy Cabann stepped out of the airport just ahead of her parents and pulled her sunglasses off the top of her head so they rested lightly on her nose. Studying the palm trees and afternoon sun, she took in the state that would be her new home. California was warm and friendly and the exact opposite of her hometown of Haness, Michigan, where she had lived her whole life until now. Pulling a suitcase with a backpack around one shoulder, she flipped her shoulder-length dishwater blond hair out of her eyes and let her dad lead them to the car. He had left a week before to help move the majority of their things into the new house by the sea and start working at his new job.

After everything was in the trunk, she sat alone in the backseat silently and listened to her parents talk so happily about the beautiful house, the quaint seaside town, her father's new job and Amy's great new school. New, everything would be new, a great fresh start. This move was supposed to help Amy get over what she had watched happen to Nola, what had happened to Amy herself, although the version her parents had believed was that some of the rougher kids from Amy and Nola's old middle school had caught them walking back to Nola's house in the dark. The change was supposed to help her come out from the shell she'd been in since Nola's death. Not that her parents said any of this last part with her right behind tham, but she had heard them whispering these things late at night when she couldn't sleep.

California wasn't going to coax Amy into being her old self, into being any less distant. No, Amy had been so distant because she had been trying to control, learn about and hide her new power, the power to see ghosts. She didn't know how or why Nola's powers had been given to her, but they had and now it was up to Amy to keep her last promise to her best friend. But she had moved, was going to attend the "wonderfully historical" (a quote from her mom) Junipero Serra Mission Academy in a town called, no joke, Careml-by-the-Sea, and couldn't even stand being in the same room as a ghost. She didn't know how to help people with her powers, didn't know how she could even juggle this new life and didn't know what she was going to do.

Two days later, Amy was following her mom down an open breezeway to an office ate her new school. It was October now and she'd already started high school at Haness High, but now her mom swore she wouldn't be going to a public school again. This school was very private, a Catholic school run by preists and nuns, and her mom had been assured that the kids here were good and Amy would be quite safe. Amy thought it sounded horribly stuffy.

Together they waited until the nun showed them down a tiny hallway into the principal's office. Father Dominic seemed like a nice man with perfectly white hair and spakling blue eyes, but Amy thought he seemed a little tired. He explained that, although Amy wasn't Catholic, she was welcome at Mass and anything else she wanted to attend at the church. She was also welcome to come and talk to him anytime she needed to. Although she knew he would call the nice men in white suits to take her away if she told him what was currently bothering her, Amy found it comforting that he wanted her to feel at ease with him.

"Well, Mrs. Cabann, I think all that's left is for me to show Amy to her locker and her first class," said Father Dominic. They all stood, Amy's mom hugged her good-bye with a 'have fun, sweetie' and left.

Amy gazed sadly at the door as it swung closed. Now it really was time to start her new life on the West Coast. Turning back to Father Dominic, she saw a shimmer right beside his desk. The shimmer began to take on the shape of a person. No, not a living person, a ghost! She stifled a scream and quickly ran to the door, saying, "Um, Father Dominic, shouldn't I be getting to class?" She felt so bad, being rude to such a nice mand and surely frightning him with her reaction to, what was to him, nothing.

He gave her a curious look and asked her to wait in the hallway so he could get her schedule and locker number. Amy barely gave him a chance to finish before she was out the door like a shot. Standing in the comfortably cool hallway, she could have sworn she heard Father Dominic say, "Jesse, you don't suppose she saw you?" There was a muffled reply from a deep, smooth voice that Amy couldn't make out and then Father Dominic strolled out into the hallway.

Amy's first class, to which she was a godd twenty minutes late, turned out to be home room with her English teacher, Ms. Helane. She was very nice and didn't make Amy say anything about herself to the whole class, which Amy was very thankful for. Speaking to strangers was not her thing; she wouldn't even order her own food at restaurants until she was eleven. Before the class was let out to go to their next hour, Ms. Helane asked a girl named Lea to take Amy to her next class and show her around. Lea had small glasses, cinnomon brown hair and cheerful brown eyes. On the way out the door she pointed to various things around the courtyard and told her all kinds of funny stories about growing up here.

"So," Lea said as they walked toward Spanish I, "what do you think of Carmel so far?"

"It's really nice. Pretty and warm. Back in Michigan we would be lucky to see 55 on a day like this. Have any advice about being new in this school?" she answered, hoping to get the conversation away from her move and the reasons behind it. Lea talked about the nice teachers and the mean ones, Sister Ernestine, the popular people and what a new junior, Paul Slater, had done just a week before to get suspended and how he had come back today. Amy listened avidly and decided if she could get nice friends like Lea and try to ignore her new power, she could handle this place. Then she blacked out.

A/N: Well, a little cliffy. I'm sorry if this upsets you, but it's for the greater good. Unless I get the next chapter up by Friday night, it won't be up until Monday at the soonest. Sorry! Remember to R/R and email me if you have questions! love, Jess