September Wind
Chapter 2: Since I'm a ghost…
"He's coming." Jazz hung up the phone and picked up the cup of coffee she'd left on the table.
Ember had posted herself against a wall, arms crossed and Sam did her best to lean back against the couch—the ghost syndrome of floating was haunting her. She had asked to borrow a mirror and marveled at her new looks. Her skin was almost a tainted white, reasonably pale, glowing with a blue tint but her hair was blinding white with a light blue shade. Her lips were darker, a contrast at how much the baby blue came out. Her eyes were also ice, and her clothes and boots shades of white. She'd run a finger over her skin amazed at how perfect it looked—but if she had to die to get it she really didn't care for it that much.
"So, Sam you don't remember anything?"
Sam looked away from the mirror letting it drop through her onto the couch. "I don't," Her voice still came out soft but audible nonetheless.
Jazz took a sip from her coffee while sitting cross-legged on a lazy boy couch. She had a grim look on her face which matched the surroundings—the place that once was lived in and had the atmosphere of life within it had been at mercy to time. A layer of dust covered most everything except for the few things Jazz had cared to use or move.
"I'm not sure where to start then…Tucker knew you longer than I or Danny ever did so we should wait for him." Jazz uncertainly meet Sam's eyes.
"Well, what about my boyfriend—Danny right?" Sam asked to fill the silence and once the words rolled off her tongue a watery smile lit up the orange haired girl's face.
"You weren't dating honestly. But you were best friends so everyone," Jazz glanced toward Ember who stood posted in the corner, "always thought you were…..I'm not sure what happened in all honestly. There were only three people there that could be sure and you were one of them." Her voice grew soft again and she looked down into the swirling brown drink seeing only a tiny silhouette of herself reflected.
Jazz let out a sigh taking her sweet time with this and Sam suspected she was simply stalling. Yet when no one came to her rescue in the few moments she had been quiet she continued again.
"There was a ghost free or something, the son of the ghost king who was determined to free his father from eternal sleep. Danny and you were together—walking home from school I guess and even Valerie was there."
Sam closed her eyes as she spoke trying to picture the scene. She could imagine the park, and she could even put a face on the halfa everyone spoke about. Yet she kept staring at the ground kicking at it with her boots. Maybe they had told her something that she didn't want to remember or was it just her mind filling in empty space.
"There was a confrontation, and Danny and Valerie must have been kidnapped because they both vanished…. It was a really bad storm going on that day and no one was there to help. You had left Tucker a message begging him to meet you at the corner of the central Park but by the time anyone got there you were dead. I've been doing my best to fill in for Danny's absence taking care of the ghosts that get free and everything but it isn't that easy..."
Jazz sighed and Sam opened her eyes to look at her as Jazz finished up speaking. "I'm sorry, there isn't that much I know and I'm sure that didn't help you any."
Ember snorted in the corner, and Sam eyed her making a mental note to pester her about what she knew later. "So how did I die?"
Jazz bit her lip setting the cup of coffee down. "Blood loss I guess, we'd better wait before I go on any longer."
Sam stood up and walked toward the edges of the room examining the pictures or ghost instruments set out with no real interest.
"Just tell me, how long ago was that?" Sam asked competing against the doorbell that rang almost at the same moment.
Jazz stood up and crossed the room toward the door pausing before she opened it. "About three years ago Sam. You were fifteen."
Sam had only been a ghost for a few hours but the sudden realization of this new world sunk in quickly enough. As a ghost she may have looked ominously beautiful but she would never age as everyone in life she had known grew older. She could move things in 'the real world' using her will to push on it but she couldn't simply feel them. She could float fly and turn invisible, walk through walls and use a bolt of purple lightening but she couldn't do the human things no matter what her powers were. Sam briefly pondered if Ember missed that, being part of the human world instead of being a damned soul forever wondering the worlds. Sam wasn't sure what she felt about being dead. She didn't want to think about it so she simply pushed it in the back of her head.
Tucker walked in but he'd stopped in the doorway looking over Sam. She couldn't say she'd recognized him like that, considering he'd also aged three years while she'd stayed the same but he didn't look like a complete stranger.
"She really is back." He said still staring at her before he looked over at Ember.
Sam once again jumped to her defense before another fight broke out but Tucker simply shrugged muttering something about 'not being surprised anymore.'
He sat down in a spare chair across from Sam and pulled out a few pictures he'd brought with him.
"You really can't remember anything?" He asked to confirm what Jazz had told him on the phone and Sam nodded looking over the faces on the Polaroids.
"It's coming back, I think. But I certainly don't remember how we ended up like this." She indicated the surroundings and Ember groaned as Tucker gave her a more accurate five minute background of her life.
"We have reason to believe Danny and Valerie were and maybe still are being held in the ghost zone."
Tucker also looked grim when he said that and Sam kicked off the ground to float a few feet while she thought absently.
"Did any of you guys actually go into the ghost zone to look for them?"
A sudden silence she didn't know possible followed Sam's statement and all eyes were on her.
"We couldn't, I mean it would be way to dangerous for us to—"
Sam smiled as she spoke looking down at the two. "What have I got to lose, I'm already dead. Where do you think they are being held?"
Ember shot up before the other two could take up Sam's offer.
"There is no way I'm going to fight against that ghost king!" She hissed and flipped around flying through the wall and into the night.
Sam glanced at the two humans before jetting out behind the fuming musician.
"I can't go in there without you."
Ember stopped flight suddenly and turned on her. "Look kid, I'll cut you some slack because you have no memory but going up against the ghost king or his friggin' minions is suicidal and there is no way I'm going. If you haven't noticed, if the ghost kid couldn't escape then neither could we. You'd be spending the next few centuries of your afterlife in pain."
Sam wasn't phased by Ember's verbal attack but secretly relieved she'd even got the ghost to stop.
"Look, if we free them then maybe they could actually beat the ghost king instead of everyone living in fear all the time."
"I don't live in fear!" Ember snapped making her voice rise into a near yell, "Even if we do save the stupid dipstick halfa then the first thing he's gonna do and shove us back in the ghost zone and we'll never get anything out of it."
The white haired ghost gave up and backed down floating back a few inches and she stared at the ground. Something about what Ember said really struck her and she knew it had to do with Danny. Would he shove them back into the ghost zone if they were once best friends?
"Look Ember," Sam started again, her voice remarkably lighter than it had been earlier. "If you don't want to help me fight him off then can you at least lead me there? Maybe after all of that I'd catch up to you anyway."
Ember eyed the girl thinking for a moment. That moment seemed horribly long to Sam who couldn't even look up to meet her eyes.
"Fine stupid, I'll lead ya there."
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A/N for anyone that cares: I know my summary isn't great so I'm relying on the reviewers I guess. I probably made a mistake writing this from Sam's place considering she doesn't remember anything. But I really need you people to tell me if you are still confused! I'm serious because the explaining doesn't go much farther than the third chapter. Anyway, I'm trying hard to make the characters in character but dealing with this subject everyone has changed a bit. I'm also trying a new writing style so if it picks up in the next paragraph seeming like there was a time lapse, there was. But if you understood this chapter that is as hard as it gets.
Review! I hate talking to myself.