Chapter Seven
Gray Manor, April 22, 2006
Two days later, very little had happened. Vlad Masters was missing, a tornado had touched down in Texas, all news that didn't really matter in Valerie's mind. She was stuck - as far as she knew - and that left little else as a priority.
And now, her surroundings had changed quite a bit. They'd moved out of Kauffman Apartments when the renovation on Gray Manor was complete.
Here, the Grays were millionaires - something Val hadn't quite been able to process until now. When Damon had become the president of Vesxco Security, he'd changed to Gray Security (easier to pronounce), and become a multi-millionaire overnight.
So, there was the mansion. It wasn't quite the Dairy King's castle, or anything like that, but it was large. Huge. Gargantuan, especially to Valerie's poverty trained eyes.
"You live here?" she asked, awestruck.
"Only during the school year," Damon said.
"Please tell me that was a joke."
"It was." Valerie only barely caught the very light nervous tone in his voice which alerted her to the fact that he was lying. She chose to ignore it.
As it was bound to, sooner or later, her mind turned to what a house the size would have meant for Danny. "And you made Danny clean this all by himself?"
"Well . . . erm . . ."
Val sighed, and shook her head. "Thought so."
- - -
Danny was still right behind them, listening but not comprehending. Mistress Gray had been acting so strangely during the past four days. Like she cared. And when he became Phantom (how he loved that name), she didn't get mad.
She didn't punish him for kissing Miss Manson. She'd believed him when he'd insisted that the other girl had made him do it.
And she'd talked to Mrs. Fenton about something. Something about where she came from (an alternate timeline, Master Gray had said), the place, the marvelous place, she'd told him of earlier in the week.
And now she was practically reprimanding her father for making him clean the mansion by himself.
But wasn't that what he was supposed to be doing? He was less than the humans, superior beings that they were - that had been brutally hammered into him by the master.
Still, now it seemed, perhaps, that there might be a slight glimmer of hope left in his world after all.
- - -
And now she saw her bedroom. Her absolutely huge bedroom. 'It's not actually my bedroom,' she corrected herself. 'It's some other Valerie's.'
Still, plopping down on the king-sized bed (lined with satin sheets, she noticed gleefully), she felt like someone who'd been invited to stay in the presidential suite in a five-star hotel.
That was before it got awkward. Damon left her alone with Danny.
He stood quietly near the foot of 'her' bed. Valerie sighed. "Are you okay, Danny?" she asked sincerely.
"Yes, Valerie," he replied automatically. Oh, well, she thought. Even if I can't get the truth out of him, at least he still calls me Valerie.
She tried again. "Could you give me the truth, Danny?" She leaned over and touched his cheek.
"I am very well, Valerie."
"The real truth." Looking into his eyes, she exhaled. "I won't punish you if you tell me the truth."
His eyes darted nervously away from hers. "I am confused, Valerie."
She blinked, and removed her hand from his face. "About what?"
"You are being far too nice, Valerie. Your opinions are of the highest law to me, Valerie, but they seem to have changed too quickly for my inferior mind."
She stared at him intently. "If my opinions are of the highest law, then my opinion is this: you aren't inferior, Danny. Remember that you're half human." She refrained from telling him what his mother had said. If it didn't go through, she didn't want his hopes crashing down, hard. "What I want you to do now is to tell me what you're thinking."
"I - I -" Two years of training to do the exact opposite of what she'd just told him to do didn't help Danny in this situation. So he went with the training. "I know that it is a hardship for you to have to feed me and keep me clothed when with other inferiors are already dead."
Tears welled up in her eyes, and Valerie reached out and hugged the boy, crying softly into his shoulder. "I wish you'd stop thinking like that."
- - -
Meanwhile, Jeremy and Samantha Manson (and their slave, Desi, as it so happened), passed by the Gray house.
How Desi hated her name. It wasn't her actual name, just a 'cute', shortened version of her real one. Her real name?
Desiree.
And Desiree was originally a wish-granting ghost, who'd caused havoc within the Ghost Zone with her loophole-oriented powers. After being trained to simply grant the wish that her master/mistress had in mind, she'd been a very high-value slave. Her powers lingered, of course, for this to work.
All of them, including extra-sensitive hearing. Since she became more powerful with every wish she granted (something the Mansons had failed to notice), this was very useful for finding more.
And while passing Gray Manor, she'd heard the voice of someone in the upstairs bedroom, wishing that someone (it didn't really matter to her) to stop thinking in some way. Her hands glowed pink for a moment as she granted the wish, unnoticed by her owners.
"So you have wished it, so it shall be," she whispered.
- - -
Meanwhile . . .
(ordinary universe)
Valerie inhaled as she knocked on the door to FentonWorks. Back at the apartment, she'd decided to talk to Danny. He was her only hope, she assumed, to getting back home.
Of course, she didn't know home was being turned upside down by . . . well . . . her, but that's irrelevant.
Maddie opened the door, and then smiled. "Hi, Valerie. Danny's upstairs."
She nodded, forced a smile, and said, "Okay, Mrs. Fenton." Then she rushed up the stairs.
Danny's room . . . oh, there it was. The one with the sign that said, 'Danny's Bedroom' on the door, obviously. She walked over and knocked on it.
Valerie heard the sounds of some video game coming from within the room. "Who is it?" Danny yelled.
Impolite little . . . Well . . . I always act this way towards my friends, don't I? she thought. "It's Valerie!" she yelled back.
"Doors open!" came Danny's shout.
She twisted the handle and walked in, closing the door behind her. "Hey, Danny," she said. "I need to talk to you."
He immediately shut off the game, and turned to her. "What is it?" he asked. She knew the look in his eyes. It was the expression of a boy who'd been turned down and was now hoping for a second chance.
"I need your help."
His look became one of concern. "What is it? Wait, scratch that, I know. You're not the normal Val, and you want my help getting back."
Valerie stared. "How'd you know?"
"Clockwork told me about your . . . situation," Danny replied slowly.
"Tucker?" she asked incredulously.
Danny sighed. "Wha . . . oh yeah, that excuse. Naw, Clockwork's the Master of Time. Not Tucker."
"Oh . . . okay . . . look, I'd rather not spend too much time with you . . . like . . . this. I just want to get home." Suddenly, her eyes widened. "That's why you left me four days ago when I was walking home! You went to see this Clockwork guy!"
Danny stared. "Um . . . erm . . . I don't know what you're talking about."
Shaking her head, Valerie exhaled. "It had to be you. You look the same while you're a ghost, for the most part, and in my world, everybody already knows. That's why you're a . . ." She trailed off, reluctant to say the next word.
Remembering her rants from earlier in the week, he finished her sentence. "Slave. I don't really care. Your world, my world. I'm an expert on alternate timelines." A strange expression crossed his face, then quickly disappeared. "Here, you're a ghost hunter, Val, and you hate my metaphorical guts. I think you can understand why I wouldn't want to tell either of you." He paused. "Oh, and, just for reference, Clockwork had just visited me, I didn't go off to see him. I ran off to think about what he told me."
She shuddered. "Ghost hunting. The idea's so wrong. It's, like, animal abuse." This earned a glare from Danny. "Sorry . . . Yeah, so how am I going to get back?"
Relaxing his leer slightly, he shrugged. "I dunno. I'll take you to Clockwork. He should take care of things . . ."