Ectoplasmic Angel

Chapter 4

O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o

It had been a week since Danny came into their lives. Every day and night was spent teaching the teenager about the English language and introducing him to various household objects. Tucker visited all the time, and Danny always made extremely pleased sounds whenever the doorbell to Sam's house rang because he learned to associate the noise with Tucker coming over.

The first two days were absolute hell for them. Danny may have been able to mimic a part of Sam's name earlier, but since then they were having zero luck on getting him to recognize everyday objects. Even Tucker's name was difficult, to the teens disappointment. He really wanted his new friend to say his name.

Finally, one day when Tucker was picking up food for them at the local Nasty Burger- after a long fight between Sam and Tucker which involved Sam saying that Danny needed healthy vegetables and Tucker claiming the kid needed to "live for once in his life!"- Sam realized the issue they were having.

Danny was learning in a way that mirrored the Serial Position Effect. Whenever they tried to teach him words, he only picked up on the beginning, end, or both. He forgot everything in the middle. Sam looked at this and immediately wanted to smack herself. They were going too fast.

She recalled how when they tried to teach Danny the word "Computer," the teen had frowned and managed a small drawn out sound of, "Caaaaaaaatttttttrrrrrrrrr."

Thrilled at her knew realization, Sam immediately set Danny down and tried again. "Com, COM," she urged. Danny tilted his head and copied with, "Caaaaaanmmmm," but seemed confused because it sounded like Sam was teaching him a new word.

"Pwu, PWU."

"Peeeeehhh."

"Ter, TER."

"Uuuuuuwwwwww."

Back and forth they practiced for twenty minutes before combining the words and soon Danny finally had something understandable. "Caaampewhuuuer," he sounded, lips stretched to lengths they weren't used to. When he finished his version of the word, he looked shocked and trilled happily. He had gotten so close to the actual thing that it would be recognizable to others!

Sam was so excited that she lifted the boy up and spun him around the room. Danny giggled and spoke rapidly in his own language as they celebrated.

When the rush of accomplishment had warn off, Sam got an idea and grinned, setting the boy down to practice one more word before her best friend got back.

When Tucker returned with food, the sound that greeted him was his own name. The teen stood frozen at the doorway for a few moments, staring at the two grinning teenagers, before swallowing. "What did you just say?" he asked.

Danny chirped happily, smile covering his entire face, and replied, "Ttttttteeeekkkkkrrrr!"

Sam recorded Tucker as he broke down in tears.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o

Two weeks later Sam and Tucker were forced to go back to school. Danny understood simple commands now, but he was still confused as to why they were leaving.

"Stay," Tucker said, pointing at Danny the Monday they had to return to Casper High. "We go," he explained, pointing at Sam who was grabbing their backpacks.

"Geeeeeeooooohhh?" Danny asked, eyes wide. "Nwwwwoo."

"Yes, Danny," Sam sighed, feeling bad and a little nervous at having to leave the teen behind. "Grandma Ida is going to watch you while we're gone, but you need to behave and stay away from my parents."

The beautiful boy frowned. "Geeenmma Eeeeena."

"Yep, you like Grandma Ida," Tucker said, trying to smile, but feeling like he wanted to cry. "So be good for her and we'll be back soon."

He recognized the word back immediately and seemed to brighten. "Eeeeeehnnnnn?"

"When?" Tucker repeated, looking at Sam. They hadn't taught Danny numbers or the concept of time yet. He only knew the words "soon" and "late."

"Late," Sam replied, gripping her backpack strap tight. "Not soon."

Obviously Danny didn't like that. "Nwwwwoo!" he cried, grabbing onto Tucker's shirt. "Nwwwwoo leeaaahheee!"

Leaving was the hardest thing they had ever done in their lives, and both of them were in BC calc this year. Danny continued to fight them about leaving and kept on demanding they come back soon, not late. To him, soon was an hour at most. Late meant almost an entire day.

He was obviously sad at their departure, but something that surprised Sam and Tucker was how angry he looked. As they walked out the door after giving some instructions to Sam's grandmother, they discussed it.

"Sam," Tucker whispered, looking at her. "He looked so betrayed."

"It's not like we're leaving forever!" she argued, using bitterness to cover up how unsettled she was. "We're coming back."

"Yeah, but he doesn't know that. This is the longest we've ever left him; he's always had at least one of us with him at all times."

"He's a teenager, Tucker," Sam grumbled. "He's probably around the same age as us. He needs to grow up."

Tucker frowned at her. "That's not the issue here and you know it."

Both were silent as they finished their walk to school. Usually Sam drove them, but they left earlier than normal in case the confrontation with Danny would take longer than they anticipated. Luckily it didn't, but the look he gave them on the way out the door made it feel like they hadn't won the battle.

As they approached the entrance to Casper High, both felt their annoyance thicken. "I hate it here, Sam," Tucker announced, walking up the steps. "I hate Dash, and Lancer, and this dumb town."

The female wasn't going to argue with him; she felt the same way. The two of them had become best friends in third grade, but they were the only friends they had ever made. For some reason, they were the targets of bullying since they were kids.

But that wasn't the reason why they hated it here. Sure the bullying was annoying as hell, but both knew they were smarter and better than Dash so his childish words didn't hurt them (although getting stuck in lockers still sucked). And even though Lancer was a tough teacher who seemed to think the two of them were lazy, he was just a normal strict teacher.

The real reason they hated this town was because it was boring, simple as that.

"Nothing ever happens here," Tucker complained. "Everything's the same! We wake up, go to school, come home, sleep. I feel like I'm stuck in this cycle of absolutely nothing!"

"Danny's new," Sam reminded, cracking a smile at the thought of their companion.

Tucker paused. "Yeah," he said, slowly. "I guess he is."

"We've survived two full years of this," the female reminded. "We can make it through one more day. Then we get to see Danny."

Her friend was filled with a new found determination. "Yeah! You know what, you're right!"

"Say it one more time, I wasn't recording."

"Sam."

For the first time in years, Sam Manson and Tucker Foley entered the school doors smiling.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o

Danny was excited. In the span of half a count* he had proceeded to learn several of the mortal words spoken by the human tongue. His mortals were frustrated with teaching him at first, but then the colorful one seemed to figure things out and all of a sudden Danny realized he sounded almost the same as the humans. He could speak their language!

Well, some of it.

He couldn't believe how smart his humans were. He had probably found the smartest mortals in the entire world! He wondered if he could teach them Voynich. The ancients would probably be pissed if a couple of mortals figured out their language, but Danny hated them anyways, and these were his humans so it'd be okay.

Then they were leaving him.

He didn't understand. He thought they liked him.

Danny asked over and over why they had to go, but their responses were still foreign to him and all he could understand was they would be gone "leeaaaahheee." He didn't know what "leeaaaahheee" was exactly, but he knew it was a long time.

Danny tried so hard to ignore how much it hurt, but he couldn't help it. Heaven didn't want him and now his own mortals didn't want him either.

The old lady spoke in soft tones and he recognized some of the noises, but his heart was too fragile to pay attention.

The worst part was, Danny had no idea what he had done wrong.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o

"Danny, sweetie," Ida pleaded. "You need to eat." The teen warbled the most broken sound Ida had ever heard in her life. "Oh, lord. This is going to be a lot harder on you than they thought."

For the past two hours the teenager had curled up on what he knew was the "cuuuoooch." He liked the old lady because she hadn't left him, but she wasn't the same.

Ida almost groaned out loud when she noticed the child was watching the door still. "Honey, they won't be back 'till late-"

Danny let out a screech and covered his head. Great. Apparently the kid now hated the word "late."

"-and if you want to make them happy, you need to eat."

She knew Danny recognized the word 'happy' because he gave her the most affronted look, as if he couldn't believe she was talking about being happy at a time like this.

Ida watched him for the next three hours as he refused to move, but even though he didn't move, something about him was changing.

"You can't see it, can you?" she asked, softly. Danny didn't look up, but she knew he could hear her. He knew the words 'you' and 'see.'

Ida wheeled over to sit next to the depressed teenager. Her old eyes scanned the outline of his body. "You glow, kid," she explained, running her shaking hands over his shoulder as if trying to hold onto the golden haze surrounding him.

Danny just shoved his head farther into the crook of his arm. She chucked at his stubbornness, but continued on. "It used to be faint, about two weeks ago when we first met, but now its gotten so much brighter. Even now it's growing."

The thing that concerned her the most was how fast the glow was suddenly growing. Since the kids left for school, its size and color opacity had tripled. Ida's eyes softened. "Sammy can't see it either. Neither can that Tucker boy," she looked at the kid and could barely make out his face amongst the bright light. "I'm the only one."

Ida shook her head to clear it. "Something's going to happen to me, isn't it, Danny?" The teenager twitched when he heard his name, but refused to turn around. "You're not normal, oh believe me I know that kids typically don't glow, but I think you're going to do great things. And wherever you came from, I hope you never have to go back because Sam and Tucker need you, kid. They were so lonely before you came."

Danny let out a small trill when he heard the names of his humans. Why did the old mortal keep talking about them? They left.

"So please," Ida whispered, voice cracking as she noticed the light kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger - "Take care of them for me. Take care of my kids, and my little Sammy, and her friends, and the people of this town, and the world."

Ida could feel her heart pounding violently in her chest as she squeezed Danny's shoulder. Her words were getting more and more slurred. "I know you probably don't think much of us yet, but we're good- we're, everyone's good- and this place is worth protecting," she chocked, slumping forward.

With her last breath, the old woman smiled and said, "You're going to like it here, Danny, and I promise everything is going to be okay." Her breath suddenly caught and stopped for the final time.

When after a few minutes of not hearing the old mortal's voice, Danny shifted and poked one eye out from under his bangs. For some reason the lady had done the thing that humans had to do every night, but Danny only had to do six times in the past half a count. He thought it was called "lllllleeeeeeep?"

He snorted. The lllleeeeeep was such a weakness for mortals. They could be attacked at any moment! Danny shifted to sit up and poked the old human on the shoulder.

Uh oh. He must have poked her too hard because the mortal suddenly fell off her "chaaaar" and landed on the floor. Danny titled his head. Mortals could survive that short of a fall, right?

"Geeenmma Eeeeena," he shouted, poking her again and watching as she rolled over to follow the movement of his finger. "Eeeeena."

She still remained in the lllleeeeep. Danny suddenly became annoyed. She was supposed to stay with him because his humans left; she wasn't supposed to lllleeeeep now! Danny grabbed her by the arm to try and shake her awake, but suddenly froze.

One of the things Danny loved about the mortals was the weird movement of liquid beneath their skin. They were warm and the feeling was soothing whenever he held his mortal's hands or piled on top of them. But the old mortal didn't have the liquid moving through her now. Why had it stopped?

"Geeenmma Eeeeena," he tried again, becoming upset when she didn't respond. He switched to his own language and told her to get up. Danny knew the humans thought his language sounded weird to their ears, but the old mortal didn't even cringe at its harsh tones.

He warbled, worried and afraid. Did some humans stay in the lllleeeeep for a long time? He didn't know if this was normal or not. He saw Aaaaaaanmmm poor some cold liquid on Tttttteeekkrrr once, but Danny didn't know where to find that either.

Danny let out a sharp trill of panic. What was going on? Then he saw the oooohhhhnnnn (not pet apparently) next to the old mortal and remembered how Aaaaaanmmm's soul sound came out of those things sometimes! He reached for the device and poked it. Danny was thrilled when he made it come to life and poked the green thing Tttttteeekkrrr hit whenever they showed him how to talk to their soul sound.

The device made its weird sound of life and forgetting how mad Danny was at them for leaving, he screeched happily when Aaaaaaanmmm's soul sound came through.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o

Thankfully sixth period hadn't started yet when Sam's phone rang.

"Jeez, could you get any freakier?" an A-lister named Paulina hissed from three desks in front of her. "That music is awful."

"It's from Gothical Nightmare," Sam hissed, angrily. One look at the caller ID had her standing up and racing to Tucker near the windows.

She showed him the name and quickly opened the device. "Grandma Ida?"

A loud sound came from the device and Sam and Tucker cringed. Apparently they weren't the only ones who heard because the A-listers started laughing.

"Ms. Manson, Mr. Foley, I understand that there are still three minutes until the bell rings, but do try and keep your cell conversations more private," Lancer instructed, sending them both a glare.

Sam nodded and mumbled sorry before turning back to her phone. "Danny?" she whispered. "What are you doing?"

Danny warbled out several sound before Sam cut him off. "English, Danny, we can't understand you."

The boy huffed, but finally sounded out, "Nwwwwoo gwooooo."

Tucker made a confused face. Sam shook her head. "Danny, seriously, we're in school, okay? We said we'd be back later, so just wait for us a little longer."

On the other side of the line there was the sound of shuffling and what sounded like Danny's version of the word "go" again. His voice suddenly came back and he angrily said, "Nwwwwoo gwoooo!"

"We had to go!" Sam whispered, frustrated. "Danny, give the phone to Grandma Ida."

"Nwwwwwooo, Geeenmma Eeeeena nwwwwwooo gwoooo!"

The female was about to shout at him again, but Tucker suddenly gasped and grabbed the phone from her. He ignored his best friends glare. "Danny, are you trying to say 'Grandma Ida no go?'"

"Eeehhhhsss!" Danny warbled.

Tucker swallowed while Sam still looked confused. "Danny, what is Grandma Ida doing exactly?"

The sound of shuffling is heard and Danny says, "lllllleeeeeeep, nwwwwwooo gwoooo. Geeenmma Eeeeena nwwwwwooo gwoooo!"

Tucker slowly lowered the phone from his face, but it looked like he didn't have to explain because Sam was already white as a sheet. "He's trying to say she's not moving, isn't he?" she whispered.

Tucker closed his eyes.

Sam suddenly reached for the phone. "D-Danny?" she whispered. "You have to hide, okay? You understand that, right? Hhhiiiiiiddeeeee."

"Hiiiiieeeedeee?" Danny mumbled. Tucker could almost picture him tilting his head. "Aaaaaanmmmm hiiiieeeeedeee?"

"No Danny, you need to," she responded, choking up. "Go upstairs and just hide. Don't come out no matter what, do you understand?"

The teen made a distressed noise, but responded with his version of yes.

"We'll see you soon."

Danny made a happy noise at the word and the device clicked as it ended the call.

Both teens remained frozen for quite some time. Finally Tucker reached out and placed a hand on his friend's shoulder as she curled in on herself.

Their actions apparently caught the attention of others because Lancer was suddenly heading towards them. "Mr. Foley," he asked, looking at Sam. "Is everything all right?"

"No," he answered, holding out Sam's phone. "We need to call an ambulance. There might have just been a death in her family."

O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o

*1 month is one full count (similar to a day for humans). 2 weeks is half a count.

A/N: Don't kill me! Her death was necessary to the plot and towards Danny understanding the finality of humans. Right now he doesn't really understand death, even though he knows that the term "mortal" implies an end. This will be important later on.