Hello there. Here is today's chapter. I will see you on Friday. :)

.

.

.

Chapter 94: Bow

.

Hiding under the blankets and refusing to answer questions proved to be surprisingly effective, especially once the two adults, Dr Iceclaw and Mr Lancer, weighed in, and swept the others away. He felt a little guilty about all the turmoil he had caused, but he had covered all of the most important parts of liminality. They would be fine. Eventually.

Once he was sure they were gone, Danny poked his head out of his blanket burrito.

"Wow," said Sam, "that was brave."

"Hmpf," said Danny, sticking out his tongue. Then, "It worked, didn't it?"

"Yeah," said Sam. She stretched. "Are you feeling alright?"

"I'm fine," said Danny. "I think I'm going to try to take a nap. Will one of you wake me once the Elysian rescue crew come into sight?"

"No problem," said Tucker. He looked down the hull. "They're lurking," he said.

"I'll make sure that no one jumps him," said Jazz. "You two go up, get some fresh air, don't worry." She waved them off.

.

.

.

Danny stirred blearily as a cold weight settled around his shoulders. He blinked, a blurry blue and purple image swimming before his eyes. "Grandfather?"

"I am sorry I've been away," said Clockwork. "The initial committee has been dragging on."

"'Sokay," said Danny, drifting back to sleep.

.

.

.

Danny next woke to Jazz prodding him lightly. He groaned, and sat up. "They're here?" he rasped. His eyes were sore, and full of sand, and he had a trail of dried drool down the side of his face. He rubbed at it.

"Not exactly 'here' yet, but we can see them," said Sam. "You should wash up," she continued.

"Yeah," said Danny, "I should do a lot of things." He glared at his injured foot. "You guys have a brush?"

"Here," said Jazz, producing one from... Somewhere. Danny thought that he was supposed to be the only one here with access to a bizarre dimensional pocket.

"Was Clockwork here earlier?" he asked, taking the brush, and running it halfheartedly through his hair.

"Not that I noticed," said Jazz.

"Okay," said Danny, frowning at his foot again. "I think I'm going to need help getting to the head. Maybe one of you could get Dr Iceclaw?"

.

.

.

Once Danny had reached the minimum level of hygiene necessary to meet the Elysians coming to rescue him and his classmates from their becalmed ship, he asked to be brought out on deck. He had to ask because he really, truly, couldn't walk. It hurt too much. The ankle wouldn't take any weight, and it had swelled horribly. He shouldn't have left the wheelchair behind, not that it would have been much use here on the ship.

Dr Iceclaw had been reluctant to bring him out at all. He was convinced that Danny would do something stupid again. That was reasonable. Danny was essentially certain that he would do something stupid again. It was almost a basic character trait of his. The question was when, and exactly how stupid it would be.

Although, that might just be the pain talking, or the stress, or any of a number of other things.

Danny sighed, and resettled himself in Dr Iceclaw's arms, bracing himself as the ghost went up the stairs. He was still half-wrapped in blankets, another requirement of the doctor's.

He was then placed, carefully, on a bench that had been prepared with blankets and pillows by Sam and Jazz. Dr Iceclaw then propped his leg up, and Sam and Tucker wedged themselves on either side of him.

"It's just a sprained ankle," protested Danny. "I still have a sense of balance. I'm not going to spontaneously fall over."

"You want us to move?" asked Sam, raising an eyebrow.

"No," said Danny, leaning into her.

Tucker threw an arm around Danny's shoulders. "Don't worry, dude. All of these guys are really laid back. No one will care."

"Not worried about the ghosts," mumbled Danny. He wasn't sure how to articulate what he was worried about. He was just... worried. He looked at Dr Iceclaw. "I am healing, at least, right?"

"You are, indeed, Young One."

(Danny had managed to convince Dr Iceclaw not to call Danny 'Great One' in front of the humans. This was the compromise.)

"Okay," said Danny, quietly. He looked away, out towards Elysium. There were several long, narrow ships making their way to the becalmed Glaciinsulo. They wouldn't be too long, now.

He kept his eyes on the ships, the galleys, really, trying to see if he could identify anyone on the decks. Meanwhile, he, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker made easy conversation under the watchful eye of Dr Iceclaw.

"Is that Aglaea Charis?" asked Danny, breaking from the pattern of the casual conversation.

"Your eyes are better than ours," said Sam.

"I know, I just have trouble with names, sometimes," said Danny.

"No you don't," said Tucker.

"Yes, I do. At least with the Aglaeas. There are, like, six of them. I'm pretty sure she's an Aglaea, but which one?"

"Aglaea Charis is the prettier one, right?" asked Tucker.

Sam reached across Danny to prod Tucker. "Is that all you think about?"

"Give me a break, Sam," said Tucker, prodding her back. "How else should I distinguish between them all? I think I only ever met three, anyway."

"Come on, guys, seriously," said Danny.

"I believe that Aglaea Aeclepiada is a doctor," said Dr Iceclaw. "I have corresponded with her in the past. She would likely be wearing a doctor's coat, or carrying a staff."

"Oh, yeah. That would be Aglaea Aeclepiada, then. Yup. And..." He frowned. "I think that Pandora put this expedition together just to mess with people."

"Why would Lady Pandora do that?" asked Dr Iceclaw, confused.

"I don't know," said Danny, "but all six Aglaeas are in that fleet. Can you not see, or..? You haven't met them. Sorry, silly question."

"Ah, it is not silly, Young One. I have not met them, but I also do not have eyes as sharp as yours."

"Really?"

"Truly."

"Huh," said Danny, filing that information away for later. "Anyway, I see Admirals Stheno and Euryale, and... Empusa, with the red hair. I wonder if she got that prosthetic she wanted yet. Then there are the other Charises, jeez, all of them, I can't even name them all, on the third boat with their sister. Gosh, there are a lot of people. I don't know more than a tenth of them. I hope they have enough room to bring us back with them."

"I was wondering why there are six boats," said Sam. "Seems a bit much for, what is it, twenty people?"

"Twenty-two," corrected Tucker. "You forgot to count Dr Iceclaw and Mr Lancer."

Sam shrugged. "I wasn't really counting," she said, "just estimating. But we could all fit on one of them."

"Probably," said Danny. "It would be a tight squeeze, though, if it was fully crewed. They aren't. It looks like they're self-propelled. Ghost ships."

"Yeah," agreed Sam.

.

.

.

Valerie glared at the ghosts who flitted from the long boats to the ship that she and her classmates had been traveling on. She didn't trust them. She hadn't trusted the other ghosts, the ones who called themselves Libra, either. But she hadn't any choice except to follow their instructions.

When boarding the ship, she had hoped for a chance to escape, to perhaps mutiny, and take control of the ship. But the ship steered itself, and none of her classmates seemed interested in an escape- and Valerie was not going to leave them behind, at the mercy of ghosts, no matter how cruel and stupid they could be. No matter why they were cruel and stupid. She wasn't a ghost. Neither were they. Even if some of them were deluded beyond belief.

She was avoiding thinking about the 'liminality' bombshell Danny had dropped. She was trying really hard to avoid thinking about it.

It just didn't make sense. But it did. It did. It made a horrible amount of sense. There was ghost stuff in her. Of course that would have consequences, and she had been too blind to see that.

Then, there was Danielle. Danielle, who was liminal, too, apparently. Is this, this slow corruption, what had happened to Danielle? Had she slowly grown more and more ghostly, until she was so contaminated that she began to melt? Had she, too, become trapped in the Ghost Zone? Is that why she had such a connection, such an attachment to Phantom? Had he 'helped' her, too? How much longer would it be until Valerie herself began to glow, to float, to change?

What about Danny?

Then, another set of questions, one she had been considering more and more these past few days. What was Phantom? Was he liminal? Was he some kind of alternate universe Danny, as Jazz had suggested? Was he a copy of Danny, as the elder Fentons had suggested? How was Danielle connected to Danny?

Over the last hour, she had formed the tentative theory that Danielle was a girl that Phantom had kidnapped, like the Harmonians, and brought to the Ghost Zone, possibly to his lair, and kept there until she had changed. In this theory, she had been chosen based on her resemblance to Danny.

Except... That didn't exactly mesh with Phantom's standard 'heroic' behavior. It didn't fit with his rather brash, plan on the fly personality, either. Danielle was smarter than to fall for that, anyway.

She was distressingly short on answers.

Could Danielle actually be Danny's cousin? Or maybe... Was this thing, liminality, genetic, as well as environmental? In that case, it was possible that she and the Fentons had inherited their weirdness from the same source.

That didn't make sense either. She was, clearly, more 'liminal' than Danny, or any of the other Fentons.

This whole thing made her brain hurt, and all the colorful ghosts coming aboard didn't help.

They were strange, these ghosts. Valerie was used to seeing ghosts with inhuman skin colors, and extreme body plans. She had become familiar with the four-armed design that these Greek ghosts seemed to like when she and the others had been questioned by Libra. Still. These ghosts were unusual. Most of them were women, many little older than Valerie herself in appearance. Some were beautiful. Too beautiful. Others were hideous. There were few, very few, in the middle ground. Many looked almost human, extra limbs aside. Others looked anything but. Valerie saw horns, leaves bound in hair, ghostly tails covered in brass armor, or allowed to flow away as mist. She saw hair of fire, and skin covered in scales. Many of the ghosts looked like they had stepped out of classical mythology. Some had clothing to match. Others wore more modern garb.

But they somehow made up a coherent whole. They... worked together, for lack of a better term. They all looked similar. Not the same, no. But like they had been rendered in the same style.

It was a little like looking at a crowd of people in a video on the travel channel. Somehow, you could pick out the people who belonged from the people who were visiting. At least, Valerie had always fancied that she had that skill. She could do it to tourists in Amity Park with a high degree of accuracy, in any case.

Then a tall, blue-skinned ghost began to float over from the largest narrow boat. Valerie tracked her. She was clearly important, what with the gold and black armor and dress, and the impressive spear. She also matched Danny's description of the Elysian ghosts' queen, Pandora, with her red eyes and fiery pink hair.

Valerie frowned. Danny had told Valerie and the rest of the class to bow to Pandora. He had also told them a lot of other etiquette related stuff. She didn't remember half of it. Or a quarter of it. She remembered, maybe, an eighth of it, most of that eighth being comprised of how to bow.

The thought of bowing to a ghost left a bad taste in her mouth. Dying because she hadn't bothered to listen to Danny (because she had thought that she would have escaped and gotten home at this point) would leave a worse taste.

She stepped away from the dubious shelter of the door to below, joining the loose congregation of students in the center of the deck. This way, she would be at the center of any action that erupted.

A movement in of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She turned, and saw Jazz, Sam, and Tucker standing, their hands clasped behind their backs, their eyes on the blue-skinned ghost. The white-furred ghost stood next to them, with the same stance. This caused a ripple in the students who stood near them. Several tried to mimic their position.

Now that Valerie was looking, she saw that the ghosts who had touched down on the deck had assumed the same position. Shoot. This was how they were supposed to stand before bowing. Valerie quickly mirrored the position. This felt weird. Military, almost. It didn't feel Greek. But what did Valerie know? Besides, these were ghosts, and it had been a long time since the heyday of Ancient Greece.

When Pandora touched down on the deck, all of the other ghosts began to bow. Most of them dropped to their knees or tails, but others just bent at the waist, and a few seemed to get away with only a nod. How were Valerie and the others supposed to bow again? She shot a quick glance back at Danny's friends. They were still standing. She was pretty sure that they weren't supposed to be standing. They were no help.

Well, most of the ghosts were kneeling, and it looked like some of the others, Mr Lancer, Sarah, Hannah, and Star included, were going the kneeling route, so...

Valerie knelt.

.

.

.

Danny sighed in relief. It looked like his classmates did remember their etiquette lessons. Some of them, anyway. They'd all managed to bow before their hesitation became insultingly long. Pandora would have let it slide, but some of her courtiers were decidedly less generous.

Pandora walked to Danny, smiling, gesturing for those that she passed to rise.

"I am glad to see that you have begun to recover, Daniel," she said in Elysian Greek.

"As am I," said Danny, trying to stay in the formal mode. "Please forgive me for not rising to great you, Queen Pandora."

"Nonsense," said Pandora. "There is nothing to forgive. I rather thought that this would happen, and I have prepared for it."

"Prepared?" asked Danny, confused. "Prepared how?"

Pandora smirked. She actually smirked. Oh, no, this couldn't be good. She then took a step back, sweeping a hand behind her to indicate the latest item coming from the ship.

"Is that a palanquin?" asked Danny, with some horror.

"Yes," said Pandora.

"No," said Danny.

"Yes," said Dr Iceclaw.

Danny got on the palanquin.