Chapter 302: The Raven House
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When they finally left the party, Danny felt buoyed up by the pleasant humming and purring in his chest. He didn't think he'd felt so, so right since being shot by the Mortifier. Sure, he'd been healed enough to be fully functional for a while now, but… He thought there might be a difference between that and being recovered.
Tonight, he felt lighter than air. He felt hopeful. He felt fulfilled.
Christmas had never been his favorite time of year. Even with the framing of the Truce last year, he'd still felt alien to it all. But the ghostly perspective and the lack of Santa-related discourse made all of this enjoyable. It was just so different from what had come before.
And yet, that same lack…
Danny wasn't stupid. Obviously. He knew he was missing things in conversation, especially here, where not all the details of the trial were understood. Sometimes, his moments of distraction were too convenient when compared to the overall topic of conversation. Sometimes his eyes skittered over an empty and innocuous hallway, or chair, or corner of a room.
He was already tired of it. He was already afraid of what he was missing coming back to bite him.
He… Didn't really miss his parents. But he knew that if his mind hadn't been altered, he would.
Because he'd promised to do so, he'd gone along with the ruling, but he wouldn't have if he didn't. If there was anything he disliked, it was having his mind tampered with.
He couldn't let it happen again. He'd be under the regency council for years, yet. There was far too much opportunity for them to decide that he couldn't make a rational decision about something and remove some other concept, place, or person from his perception.
"Hey," said Ellie. "What're you thinking about?"
"Sorry," said Danny. "Got distracted by old memories."
"Old memories, huh?"
"Yep."
"Does that have anything to do with where we're going?" asked David.
"Maybe," said Danny, grinning. He nodded his head uphill. "You'll see when we get there."
There was some good-natured groaning.
"Come on," said Tucker. "You guys can fly. Why are you complaining?"
"Because I'm tired," said David. "I want to nap for hours."
"I think that's just called sleeping," said Damien, poking at David, who danced out of reach.
"Napping, sleeping, dreaming." They sighed, wistfully. "Is there anything better?"
"You should be able to, when we get there," said Jazz. "Assuming it didn't get wrecked when the GIW were here."
Danny laughed, even though that thought twinged. "Maybe I should have flown ahead?"
"No, no," said Sam, putting on an exaggeratedly 'strong' expression. "We must face this together." She sniffed. "No matter how much we must fear for my garden."
They all burst into giggles.
"You mean the one that we left full of weeds on purpose?" asked Tucker.
"Hey, I'll have you know I cultivated those weeds." She tilted her head thoughtfully. "Those roses were pretty nice, though. I hope they survived, feral mess or not."
"I hope the GIW didn't wreck my notes. I mean, they wouldn't have been able to read them, and I sure wasn't working on anything harmful, unlike some people, but…" Danny rotated his hand. "It'd be annoying."
"Same," said Tucker. "I had just about all of my stuff moved to the school, though." He sighed. "The losses. Emily, Veronica, Justine… Tragic."
"Um," said Dmitri, hesitantly. "Did I miss something? I don't know who those are…"
"Yeah, Tucker names his tech," said Sam. "It's bizarre, but we love him anyway."
"You name your plants!"
"Plants are alive."
"Emily could have been alive."
"Emily was a calculator."
"Hey," said Danny, a rather smug smile spreading across his face, "look who's arguing like an old married couple, now, lovebirds?"
"I'm never going to live that down," said Tucker.
"Seeing as how you still do it, no. But, Danny, did you have to get me with the friendly fire?"
"Absolutely."
They turned onto a lonely, overgrown gravel road. Ravens and sparkling green wisps stood out starkly against snowball bushes and other white flowers lining the path. The ravens swooped at them, laughing mischievously.
"Hello!" they said in too-human voices. "Hello! Hello!"
"Hello," said David.
"Are they ghosts?" asked Dustin.
"Some of them might be," said Sam. "But ravens are pretty smart in and of themselves. Animals are weird here." She waved up at the ravens. "Hi, guys. Missed us?"
"Missed! Missed you! Hello!"
The wisps came down from the trees, then, jingling merrily as they playfully twirled, chasing the ravens. Danny trilled, mimicking them. Some of them broke from their game to bump into Danny's cheeks, then the others'. They seemed especially interested in David and Dmitri, but everyone got a greeting before they flew away again.
"They're cute," said David. They looked down at Dmitri. "Remind me of a certain someone. Someone who's small, sort of glowy—"
The small, sort of glowy someone flew swiftly up to David's ear and bit it.
"Ow," they complained, without heat. "You're more vicious than expected, you know that?"
Dmitri blinked, his aura flickering slightly. "I'll take that as a compliment!" he said, only a slight waver of uncertainty behind his words.
They bounced down the road, playing with the wisps and the ravens.
At the end waited the Raven House.
The Raven House, before Danny opened the Portal, had been one of Amity Park's innumerable fake haunted houses. After the Portal, it had been abandoned. Too many real hauntings. Too many real ghosts. Sure, there was a scary story associated with it, but nothing of substance.
But Danny, Sam, and Tucker had found it useful as something of a safehouse. Well. It had, eventually, become a hang-out place, especially once Jazz and Ellie joined them. They kept extra essentials there. A few changes of clothing, water, food, some scavenged and cheap furniture, first aid supplies, money to run with… That kind of thing. They'd also sometimes kept personal projects there, although nothing too important, both because of the difficulty of getting there, the lack of electricity and water in the building, and other problems in the building that four teenagers couldn't fix on their own.
The building was pseudo-gothic and, when it was in use as a tourist destination, had been decorated to fit its image. The fence was wrought iron, the garden teemed with gargoyles and raven statuettes, the paint, where it wasn't peeling, was dark.
"Wow," said David, raising an eyebrow. "What is this, a secret base?"
"Ah!" said Dmitri, sparkling. "That's so cool!"
David looked at Dmitri, clearly reassessing something, then back at the house. "I guess so. I'll hold judgement until I see the interior."
According to their preference, they jumped over, flew over, or phased through the fence – except for Jazz, who exasperatedly opened the gate, which squeaked ominously – and picked their way through the overgrown garden.
"Huh," said Sam, bending down to peer at some smaller white flowers. "These are strawberries."
"Really?" asked Danny, making his shoulder intangible to avoid a leggy rosebush. "They are! That's almost like a fairytale, isn't it? Strawberries in December, under the snow?"
"Danny," said Sam, "we're in the garden of a haunted house with a reincarnated pharaoh, a teenaged top-level diplomat, and most of the royal family of another dimension, one of whom happens to be an important historical figure because of time travel. I think we entered fairytale territory a while back."
"You didn't even mention the dead thing," said Ellie.
"Or that I'm carrying Excalibur and a sword that can send you to a nightmare dimension," said Jazz.
"Or—"
"If I listed everything unrealistic about us, we'd be here until the sun came up."
"I thought that was sort of the plan, anyway?" asked Dmitri.
"Sure, but inside."
"We're not going to stay the night here, there aren't enough beds," said Danny, leading the way to the door.
"Beds are very important," said David, nodding in agreement.
"I agree!" said Tucker.
Danny jiggled the door open, all of them giggling at how the hinges squeaked and shrieked, stepped in, and stopped dead. More dead than usual.
"Vlad? What are you doing here? How do you even know about this place?"
Vlad, who had, evidently, brought an entire dark leather armchair with him just so he could lean forward in it ominously, leaned ominously forward, steepling his fingers. "Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, you came here so often it would have been remiss of me as your archenemy not to know about it."
"What do you want?" asked Damien.
"Hello, Father," said David, waving.
"I thought Nocturn was your dad," said Dustin.
"He is. Before you say anything, I unlive to be confusing."
Vlad sighed. "I thought," said Vlad. "That you might enjoy getting your Christmas presents now, rather than whenever I manage to finally disentangle myself from the president." He gestured at a small pile of wrapped boxes. "You can keep the chair, too. I couldn't stand the idea of sitting on one of those mildewy beanbags you seem to think constitute appropriate furniture."
"Is this a bribe?" asked Danny.
"Consider it a peace offering."
"That's still a bribe."
"Come now, Daniel. You and your friends are involved in politics now. We can maintain a polite fiction."
Vlad's words were typically Vlad-ish, but there was something else in his expression, something else in the way he was sitting, in the way he was here waiting for them. Yeah, that he had been lurking for them in what they had considered a safe space wasn't great, but he also wasn't doing this in public, meaning that the most obvious benefit for him, goodwill from the general public, wasn't in play.
"They're only trifles, regardless," continued Vlad. "Hardly anything that would function as a bribe."
"Vlad," said Danny, surprised at how chiding he sounded. "Really?"
"As I said, I don't know when I will again have the opportunity to speak with any of you frankly."
"When did you ever speak with any of us frankly?" asked Damien, scowling.
"You know what I mean," said Vlad.
"Not really," said Tucker. "If you said what you meant, we might get somewhere. In the meantime, I'm going to record this conversation so we can pick it apart later for clues about your next evil plot."
Vlad stared at Tucker as if seeing him for the first time. Danny, for his part, wracked his memory for times the two of them interacted and came up with a remarkably short list.
"There's something very wrong with you."
"No, you."
Danny sighed. "Thank you, Vlad, but is that really all you've come here to say?"
"Actions speak louder than words and all that."
"Sure, but if you'll allow me to extend the metaphor, they're still different languages." He turned to Jazz. "That makes sense, right?"
"More or less," said Jazz. "What we're saying is, we don't know what you intend this action to mean. You need to translate."
Vlad stood up and started to pace back and forth behind the chair. Danny watched his fingers twitch behind his back and wondered how Vlad felt being the subject of intense scrutiny from all of them. He got up and did speeches and interviews all the time as mayor and as a billionaire, but this wasn't really the same type of situation.
"I don't expect to buy your affection," said Vlad, continuing to pace. "Or your forgiveness, for that matter. But I understand that my actions have been… unconducive to having a positive relationship with…" He sighed, heavily. "Anyone."
"The trial was a bit of a wakeup call for you, wasn't it?" asked Jazz. "The conclusion, I mean. How it all resolved." Her eyes flicked to Danny, who shrugged.
"And what you, all of you, said to me in the aftermath. And… other things. Other… regrets, shall we call them?" His tone was delicate, but also hesitant. "If I had… neglected this last opportunity before leaving, then that would surely be another regret. This overture is… late, and I know I have acted against your desires both now and in the past. But, as they say, better late than never, yes?"
"Maybe," allowed Ellie. "But you can't just say you're sorry and then expect it all to be forgiven. You used us. You hurt us. You threw us away. I've seen what could have been, in the Digressed Tower, more ways than one. You have a lot to make up for."
"Then set me a penance," said Vlad. "Give me a way to show I've changed."
"I'm not sure you have changed," said Damien. Dustin hummed in agreement, the tone deep and rumbling.
There was more humming, under that. The near inaudible harmony of ghost cores in proximity physically and spiritually.
They were thinking. They were thinking together. A sort of unity.
"Perhaps I haven't," said Vlad. "But… I think I would like to."
"We will need to talk about it," said Dustin.
"Extensively," agreed Damien, crossing his arms, "and without you hanging over our shoulders."
"We might have different answers, too," said David, shrugging expressively. "We're different people, after all."
"Of course," said Vlad, despite looking like he'd swallowed a lemon. "Of course, I couldn't expect differently. But will you still accept these gifts, as the tokens they are?"
Danny took in the uncertain (and perhaps somewhat anticipatory) faces around him. "We're going to have to talk about that. Outside."
Ellie, following his lead, grabbed two of her brothers and started pulling them out the door. "We'll be back," she said, stabbing a finger at Vlad. "Don't go anywhere."
