Chapter Twenty-One: Pay the Piper

That evening, Fenton Manor was quiet. The only sounds that could be heard were the settling of the foundation, the wind rustling the trees, and the occasional servant going to another room. Outside, the day was unnaturally clear: fifty-five degrees in winter season was not normal.

Ellie Fenton descended through the roof of the manor, reappearing in the kitchen. A reddish mark was on her forehead from where she'd banged it into Vlad's wall. But the pain was nothing compared to the shock of the discovery she'd found. The discovery that her best adult friend had been a half-ghost.

Without a word, Ellie opened the refrigerator door, pouring herself a small glass of orange juice. While she drank that, she got out a small piece of paper and began to write a short message:

Dear Aunt Jazz,

Went to hillside. Be back around sixish.

Ellie.

After she'd finished the glass, she heard voices coming up the hall.

"So you learned to water-ski when you were seven?" It was Gina's voice.

"Yep. And I learned to snow-ski at six." This one was her brother's.

I'd better get outta here, she thought. Quickly putting the note in plain sight, she went intangible once again, flying through the roof, towards the southern end of Fenton Manor. Here, a spot of grass that surrounded a solitary oak tree stood out in the rest of the thick, forested area.

Ever since she was little, Ellie's mother used to take her to this place. They'd found it shortly after they'd moved in, back when she and Jake were infants. It was calming. Soothing. Like a spot in an enchanted forest from a storybook tale.

Now, in the midst of January, the oak tree was just starting to sprout leaves again. It was truly a work of natural art: a moment of spring emerging from the chill of winter.

Ellie leaned her head back against the oak, slumping to the ground. "What am I going to do?" she asked nobody in particular. "Vlad's a half-ghost, my brother is friends with my worst enemy, and there's nobody else I can talk to about these dreams!"

She began to cry, the only sound in the glade where she sat.

But then there was another sound. An even stranger sound.

Ellie felt the all-too-familiar rush of blue mist up her throat and out from her lips. She began to look around for the source of the noise, but turned up nothing. Taking no chances, the girl transformed in a burst of light, just as a greenish miasma was cast on the open glade. Then, she saw who triggered her ghost-sense.

"Piper!" she exclaimed as the green-clad ghost stepped lightly out from the trees.

"That's right, ghost-munchkin!" he replied in his accent. "Where's your brother?"

"Why do you care!" Ellie said a bit too harshly.

"I don't. I just wanted to get you two once and for all this time, but you'll do, my pretty!"

Bringing his flute to his lips, Piper shot off a blast of sound right at Ellie. It hit the ghost-girl head on, throwing her back through the budding oak tree. The tree itself was blasted into splinters by the sheer force of the sound.

Ellie looked at the shattered remains of the oak where she used to sit under as a child. Then, she looked at Piper. Her ghost half basked in this anger, eyes glowing with intensity.

"That," she said evenly, "was a bad mistake."

In a charge that could break through a battleship, Ellie flew at Piper, knocking the ghost into the ground.

Ellie looked at Piper.

Piper looked at Ellie.

There was nothing anymore. Just them and the damage they'd caused each other.

"You're saying that Tyler's mom is a news reporter?" Dave asked.

"Yes," Gina replied. "Why do you guys think he's such a news buff?"

Jake, Dave, and Gina were up in Jake's room, all sitting on the blue sheets of his twin sized bed. For the last half hour, they'd been talking, jumping from topic to topic. This minute's subject was Ty.

"It's not that," Jake said. "It's just that he's so...annoying. How do you put up with him?"

"You get used to him," Gina said. "Just filter out the pointless babble, and he's actually pretty nice."

"Hey, just as long as he doesn't try to interview me again, I'm fine," Jake said.

"Fat chance," Dave said.

"Hey! I don't make fun of you guys!" Gina said harshly.

Neither boy had anything to say.

"So, um...Jake?" Gina asked. "Could I talk to you outside for a minute?"

"Sure," Jake replied. They walked out of the room, shutting the door behind them, leaving David to his own machinations.

"Okay, what is it you wanted to talk about?" Jake asked, once they were out of earshot.

"Um..." Gina started. "Listen, about what happened on the boat... That was insanely forward of me, and I should never have asked you that. Gosh, I must've sounded shallow..."

"Oh, it's no big deal," Jake said. "We're just friends."

"Right. Glad you understand." Gina enveloped Jake in a friendly hug that lasted for five seconds. Then, for some reason, Dave came outside.

"Guys?" he asked the embracing teens. "What's going on here?"

"Oh! Nothing!" both said in unison, blushing.

"Riiight..." Dave said incredulously. "Well, if you're done–"

"Jake!" Jazz called from downstairs.

Jake looked at his friends. "I'd better go listen to her."

"Good idea," Dave said.

Jake started down the spiraling staircase, seeing his aunt at the bottom, a worried look on her face. Whe he reached the bottom, he said, "What's wrong?"

"It's your sister, Jake," Jazz said. "She's never out at this time of year. It's too gloomy."

"Yeah, she's been acting weird ever since she got her ghost powers..."

Jazz's eyes went wide. "What?"

"She's been acting weird. What?"

"Jake, where is she?"

"Out on the hilltop where she thinks."

Jazz stared into space, looking to Jake as though in deep, terrible realization.

"Why?" Jake asked. "What's wrong?"

"I think something may be wrong..." Jazz said simply.

Piper reeled back as Ellie struck another blow. This same cycle of fighting had been what he and the ghost-freak had been doing for the last fifteen minutes: one knocked the other down, the other retaliates by doing the same, and so on. But this was getting tiresome. Piper's ego wouldn't allow a loss.

"Getting tired, munchkin?" he asked as he recovered. "Your powers have a–"

That was as far as he got, for the next thing that he saw was the underside of Ellie's boot approaching his face at what looked like terminal velocity.

The impact was devastating. If Piper hadn't already been dead, the kick would have probably broken his neck. Instead, however, it sent the green-clad ghost flying into a large fir tree, which buckled and yawed under the force of the impact.

"Now go away," Ellie shouted, "or I'll smack the green right off you!"

Clutching his hooded head in pain, Piper looked at Ellie. He pushed her comment aside, drawing upon the knowledge of his own personal invincibility to open a channel to his musical powers.

He lifted the flute to his lips, playing out another high note. A beam of green light shot towards the half-ghost, tearing apart the ground upon which she stood. Yet even as she took off to avoid the chasm, even as she charged once again at the ghost in green, Piper understood.

Ellie here was a natural fighter.

This girl had a nuclear furnace where her heart should have been, and it was burning through the walls of her human repression. Repression that she was using to conceal some inward fear.

Fear, Piper speculated, of what might happen if that furnace went critical.

Piper slipped aside from Ellie's charge, saying, "Scared, ghost-child?"

"What? No!" Ellie shot back. "I'm not afraid of you!"

"Right," Piper said cooly. "Afraid of yourself. You are consumed by it. I can see it in the way you fight: spastic, erratic, and desperate. HA! You're no hero! You're a posturing fraud!"

Piper said, with utter satisfaction, "Aren't you a little old to be afraid of the dark?"

Ellie wavered for a second or two. This was all he needed. He sent off another blast at Ellie, knocking her back into the splintered remains of the tree. He looked down upon her with the knowledge of his performance and what it would do. He saw her swimming into unconsciousness.

But then, something happened.

As Ellie lay crumpled across the oak splinters, Piper heard a voice. It was weary, wise, and ancient, like a man who had seen the entire history of the world.

"TIME OUT!"

And then–just like that–

The ghost-girl was gone.