Sam's house stood wedged between several other million-dollar brownstones in the heart of Downtown Amity Park. It was three stories tall, including the basement, and had a three-car parking garage out the back entrance.

Danny had always felt out of place here. His house was half laboratory and half mid-century re-décor that his parents barely kept afloat through their contributions to science. Most of their extra cash went into hunting ghosts in their off time.

Meanwhile, the Manson family was so well-off, they probably sneezed into hundred-dollar bills before tossing them into the Santa Claus-sized fireplace that stretched to the two aboveground levels.

Sam even had a fireplace in her room.

When he knocked, Ida Manson answered. Ida Manson was a spunky, sassy, powerful woman who had married into the family when she fell for Sam's grandfather. After his passing several years ago, Ida continued to never to slow down and to live life to the fullest. She was a kind matriarch and much more down-to-earth than Sam's parents. Everywhere she went, she dashed around by scooter, making her much more formidable than most grandmothers.

Danny liked her a lot.

"Hey, Ida."

"Ooo it's that Fenton boy that I like so much," she said with a grin. "What are you doing here?"

"Sam asked Tucker and I to meet her here. He won't be here until after six, though."

"Oh, that's right. Sam mentioned something of the sort when she got home. I'm forgetting in my old age."

Danny knew that was a lie. Ida Manson caught everything and retained the information like an elephant. Playing the aging grandmother, Sam had explained, was something that Ida did to irritate her arrogant son and annoying daughter-in-law.

"Come on in," she told him.

He stepped over the threshold and, like always, was awed by the dangling chandelier in the foyer. The grand staircase loomed ahead of him, and the archways to the left and right led to large living spaces. One with a TV and the other with Victorian furniture that no one was allowed to sit on. Like most places that had more rooms than people who need them, the house seemed empty. Uninhabited.

How could a house full of living people feel so... haunted? It wasn't exactly cozy.

"You're here."

Danny turned and saw Sam standing at the top of the stairs. She was already dressed down for studying – leggings and a crewneck sweater the color of wine – with her hair tied up neatly in a bun. She already looked tired.

"Alright, tell me. What's so important?"

He was about to say goodbye to Ida when he realized she was gone. He looked around but she must have scootered away.

"She's sneaky like that," Sam said as if reading his thoughts.

Danny bounded up the stairs two at a time.

"You'll never guess what happened."

"I believe you. Come on."

She led him down a hallway decorated with blues and creams. A pair of armchairs that no one probably ever sat in lined one wall on either side of a mirror. When they reached her room, Danny almost laughed.

"Your door is still purple? Didn't you do that back when we were freshmen?"

Sam shot him a dark look. "What's wrong with that?"

He almost stepped back. "Oh, nothing."

She rolled her eyes. "Come in."

Danny hesitantly followed her into an equally purple and dark room. Large bay windows on the wall that would normally overlook the bustling downtown streets were covered in ebony, floor-length curtains. A four-poster bed with a black iron frame was piled with soft blankets and large pillows. On the opposite wall was a large fireplace. It was part of the chimney chute that extended downstairs into the Victorian room as well. Presently, there was no fire burning.

Sam perched crossed-legged on her bed and gestured for Danny to sit in the black leather reading chair nearest to her.

"Alright," she said, "I'm ready."

.

.

.

When Tucker arrived after six, he found Sam and Danny eating pizza in her room. Sam was cradling a giant necklace, turning it this way and that in her hands. The necklace was gold, the gem inside a huge green emerald.

"Okay, there's a story here."

They looked up from their distractions.

"Hey! You made it." Danny stood up and offered Tucker some pizza. Sam remained on the bed with the necklace in her hands.

"What the heck is that?" Tucker asked between mouthfuls.

"Some kind of ghost amulet," Danny told him. Quickly, he filled Tucker in on the events of the night before.

"Whoa, she talked to you? She was a dragon and then not a dragon?"

"Yeah," Danny confirmed, "some kind of shape-shifting ghost, I guess. I don't know how it works. She was crying too much for me to ask more questions. I didn't even get her name."

Sam ran her thumb over the emerald. With experience from playing with her mother's jewelry as a kid, she knew that the emerald was definitely real. Heavy, expensive, and old.

"This could be a legitimate medieval artifact."

"I'm confused," Tucker said. "We're sure this woman was a real person, died, and now she takes on dragon form in the afterlife? How does that even happen?"

"Other than the shadow ghost-"

"Demon," Tucker corrected.

"Yeah, whatever, other than that one, we've never met a ghost that wasn't human-looking and, probably, alive at some point. All those green blob ghosts haunting the old neighborhoods were people once, we know that."

"We assume that," Sam corrected him, glancing at her bookshelf where the Gothica sat wedged between Poe and Woolf.

"But how can she just... become a dragon now? Do you get special powers when you die?"

"Maybe she was a dragon when she was alive, too," Danny said, mostly joking. Tucker's eyes went wide.

"Dude, if that were the case, we've stumbled on way more than just ghosts."

"I don't think that's it," Sam said with a laugh. "Look, if she did live and die hundreds of years ago, maybe she was someone important and we can find information on her. Danny told me that she looked like Rapunzel. Maybe she was a princess."

"Like a real one?" Danny glanced at his backpack that held his history textbook. It was American history, so he surmised that it wouldn't hold much information on princesses or dragon ghosts from medieval Europe.

Sam shrugged and pulled her laptop from its place on her pillow. "Sure. Died young, buried somewhere mysterious? This amulet is probably supposed to be in a museum somewhere." She sat cross-legged on her bed and began typing.

"So, you think that..." Tucker paused.

"What?" Danny asked.

"You know... maybe she was buried with it? And now she carries it around in the afterlife and it gives her powers?"

"It's a theory," Sam said, her fingers flying over the keys. "I bet it shows up in a painting somewhere and historians never found it. I don't know about powers or how it turns her into a dragon but..."

"Hey, isn't it my job to do the worldwide-web legwork around here?" Tucker bit into his pizza and smirked. Sam ignored him. "What's with her?"

Danny winced. "Sam's kind of on a tight schedule."

"Oh, college applications?"

"Yeah, how did you know that?" Danny asked.

"I pay attention, dude."

"Ouch." Danny winced. "I guess the only things I've been focused on are ghosts and getting a date for the dance, huh?"

"Tell me about it," Tucker agreed. "I'm never going to get a date. It's senior year, meaning that we'll officially have been going stag for all four years come Saturday."

"Well... that's not entirely true."

Tucker's slice of pizza paused on its way to his mouth. He'd been about to bit into the greasy, delicious cheesy-garlic crust, but was now looking at Danny as though he'd suddenly burst into song.

"What did you say?"

"I'm saying that... well, I'm not going stag. I've got a date."

"You have a date!?"

Sam finally looked up from her Google search on medieval amulets and blinked. "You have a what?"

"A date," Danny said sheepishly. "To the dance. I asked Paulina and she said yes. Well... technically she asked me but-"

"You're taking Paulina Sanchez!?" Tucker was floored.

"I can't tell if you're excited for me or are taking this really badly, Tuck."

"Of course I'm taking it badly! How could you! I'm gonna go stag for the fourth year in a row, meanwhile, you're taking the most popular girl in school to homecoming? Did she have a stroke?"

Danny laughed and threw his crust at Tucker who caught it and took a big bite out of it. "No, jerk, she didn't have a stroke! She asked me, or well, asked me to ask her. So, I did. See, I've got proof."

Danny reached into his backpack and pulled out the slip of paper with Paulina's address and phone number on it.

"You gotta be kidding me," Tucker cried. He took it and pretended to be passing out from shock. "Now I'm the only dateless guy in all of Casper High except Mikey who's on vacation."

"What about Grey Griffin?" Danny asked. "You realize she's totally into you?"

"Disagree. Even if she was, she's not really my type."

"Oh, really? Who is your type?"

Tucker ignored him. Then he turned to Sam.

"Sam, help me out here. He can't abandon us like this, right? We're all supposed to be going together like the single losers we are!"

Sam was quiet. She hadn't said anything the whole time. Her eyes were fixated on the little piece of paper in Danny's hand with Paulina's number on it. She looked somewhat sick.

"Sam? You're not mad, are you?" Danny was suddenly worried. Had he really broken the best friend rule by going solo? He hadn't meant to disrupt the trio for their last homecoming dance together.

"No," she said slowly. "I'm not mad. I was actually... trying to figure out how to tell you both… that I'm not going to the dance."

Danny and Tucker looked at each other. Sam looked back down at her laptop and kept Googling, as though she hadn't just said anything at all.

"What do you mean?" Tucker looked genuinely upset this time. "Why don't you want to go?"

"I don't know. The dances are stupid every year. I mean, come on," Sam said. "I just figured I should save my time and effort and put it toward something more important."

"Like all these college applications?" Danny thought he'd understood that Sam was stressed, but he hadn't realized how much.

"Yeah, actually I have a lot of AP homework. Can we table the dragon ghost for later? Or you guys can work on it... I don't know."

Not only was she distracted but she looked really upset now. Tucker had an uneasy feeling in his gut, wanted to ask more, but Danny started to collect the pizza boxes.

"Sure. We can get out of your hair." He nodded at Tucker who reluctantly helped clean up the mess.

A short time later, the two of them were on her front porch saying goodbye.

"I'm sorry. I'll see you guys at school tomorrow."

"Don't be sorry," Danny told her. "You gotta do what you gotta do. I'm sure we can do some digging on our own, right Tuck?"

Tucker still looked overly concerned, his eyes on Sam who wouldn't look at them at all.

"Yeah. What Danny said."

"Just be careful," she told them as they made their way down the brownstone steps.

"You got it," Tucker said. Then Sam closed the door on them.

They walked down the block and headed for the bus stop that would take them closer to Danny's house. Tucker kicked at stones on the street as they walked.

"What was that all about?"

"I dunno," Danny said. "I guess I thought she was doing okay, but maybe the stress is really getting to her."

"Maybe she's upset about going dateless for the dance," Tucker said.

"Ask her to go," Danny said nonchalantly. Tucker's head snapped up and for a moment, his heart beat hard in an anxious frenzy of emotions.

"Wh-what? Ask her to the dance? Like... as?"

"Friends," Danny said, confused. "You know, ask her to go. Pick her up, buy her a flower. A friend date."

"A... friend date."

Danny stopped and stared at Tucker. "What's wrong? Is the idea that bad? Do you think she really is just stressed?"

"N-no, I just... maybe. Yeah, maybe we should just leave her alone."

Danny raised an eyebrow. Then he shrugged.

They reached the bus stop and waited for the evening connection. When they boarded, the bus was nearly empty, so Tucker pulled out his phone and started Googling medieval ghosts, dragons, princesses, real-life Rapunzel-looking women lost to history, and anything else they could think of.

"What about the amulet itself?" Tucker asked. "Does it have writing or markings on it that we can research? You know, runes or Latin or whatever?"

"Hm, I'm not sure." Danny dug into his backpack for the amulet. Then he dug some more. "Oh, shit."

"What?"

"I think I left the amulet at Sam's."

Tucker groaned loudly. "And we'd just agreed to leave her alone."

A second chapter in the same month? What is this madness!

Thanks for your reads and reviews, everyone! I hope you like this updated chapter. I was going to have this arc be very similar to the episode in the show, but somehow I got carried away (again). I think this new-ish direction will be a good one, so bear with me!

-Song