Phantoms of Amity Park

Chapter 5

Screaming… she could hear screaming. It was close by; underneath her. Who was screaming? She needed to get to them, needed to help them. But she couldn't move. Her limbs were like lead.

Cold water dripped down the sides of Anna's forehead as a wet cloth was set on her face. Her eyes burned, but the water helped to relieve the heat and roused her from her sleep. The bed she was in was overly soft, she sank into in like a rock, but it was comfortable. She almost didn't want to wake up.

She opened her eyes slowly and was met by three young smiling faces; Danny and his friends.

"Anna!" Danny exclaimed, making Anna cringe, head pounding. "Sorry. How are you feeling?"

"Like hell," her voice was still weak.

"You have yourself to blame for that," came a voice from the end of the bed. "What did you think would happen? Going out as sick as you are."

Anna looked down to see Vlad leaning against one of the bed posts.

"Mr. Masters? Where am I? What happened?" Anna asked.

Vlad gave her an annoyed look, "Don't play with me. You know full well what happened."

Anna averted her eyes. It was true, she did; everything except after she had crashed through the clock tower window.

"Would you back off?" Danny turned to Vlad, careful not to let his voice rise too high. "If you hadn't knocked her through a window…"

Vlad looked offended, "If I had known it was my secretary, I wouldn't have fought her in the first place!"

She looked back up at them all, "So I guess the secret's out then."

Vlad crossed his arms, "That's quite obvious. You have a lot of explaining to do."

"Don't worry, I plan to tell you guys everything," Anna closed her eyes. "You see…"

"Including who Victor is," Vlad interrupted.

Anna's eyes shot open and she tried to sit up, the cloth on her forehead falling onto the bed. She almost fell sideways, but Danny caught her, keeping her upright.

"How do you know that name?" She asked.

"It's what you called me in the clock tower before you passed out," Vlad explained. "You said that you kept your promise."

Anna bit her lip, "That was… Victor is…"

"You don't remember saying that?" Sam asked.

Anna shook her head, keeping her eyes down at the bed sheets.

"Guess more got out then you wanted to," Vlad said.

When Anna was silent for many long moments, Danny put a hand on her shoulder.

Anna took a deep breath and sat up on her own, despite how she was feeling, "Fine, I'll tell you everything. But I'll have to start from the very beginning."

"That was the idea, wasn't it?" Vlad raised an eyebrow.

"Let's see," Anna closed her eyes. "It was 1778…"

"How's that the beginning?" Tucker exclaimed.

Anna smirked, "1778 was the year I turned 25, the year my family's home burned, and… the year I died."

ooooo

To be completely truthful, my story starts before me. My family, the VanRatten's, settled in Georgia long before even my grandfather was born. We were what was called "old money" to the country folk. Not long after the family settled, we got rich. The details as to how were lost, but after our first hundreds, it seemed that luck had always been on our side. Every enterprise, every investment cashed us hundreds of dollars. Back then, that was impressive.

Father was the next patriarch of the family to continue this trend. He mainly focused on continuing the cotton plantations that his father and grandfather had set in place; using the three houses of slaves that we had on the property to farm and spin the cotton into spindles.

As I had told Danny before, I was one of five children. My oldest siblings were 28, 27, and 26 respectively and my younger sibling was 16. Andrew opted to move his wife into our family home; they had a three year old daughter. My only sister, Marie had married only a year previously and lived in a big city far up north with her husband. My second brother William had yet to marry and was more interested in learning the family business and enterprises then finding a wife. And my youngest brother, Devon, he had yet to find a path for himself. He used to say that he want to travel; foreign lands, under the oceans, even up in the skies! I fueled his imagination. I didn't want to be suck as a house wife or whatever I was destined to be.

Mother had been bedridden with illness for many years and was very rarely able to leave her bedroom upstairs. Father had called in many of the ages best doctors to treat Mother; However, just when the treatments seemed to be taking affect, Mother would be taken by a new symptom and once again become bedridden.

Then there was Victor Wahlberg. His family was old money as well and had been close friends with my family for a long time; thus, we had grown up together. It seemed eventual that we would fall in love, like it was always meant to be. Victor was five years older than me and ambitious. I remember the in the winter of 1776, Victor was at the mansion visiting, and after supper we had retired to the library. I was sitting on the rug in front of the fire with Devon, playing chess, while Victor and Father were in the two armchairs next to us, drinking their after supper coffee.

Victor was purposing a plan he had that could fine tune our family's cotton farming. He had recently acquired a model of the recently invented steam engine and was experimenting to see how many uses he could find for it. One machine he wanted to invent was an automated cotton pulling machine; faster and more efficient then the work of slave hands. Of course, Father was interested, he was a business man and the prospect of quicker work and a more refined product peaked his interest. He encouraged Victor to do his research and experiments for the new cotton pulling machine. He was still working on his machine two years later, but was getting closer to a completed product.

In the spring of 1778, our mansion was alive with activity, being the month of my birth. My sister had come from the north with her husband, which was rare. The day of the party, Father had the servants running around the house in a panic, cooking food, cleaning the downstairs rooms, tending the gardens. I couldn't take the activity; I had gone outside to the gazebo to escape it. I would have taken my niece with me for company, but my sister-in-law had laid her down for a nap in the nursery just not long ago.

"There you are," I turned to see Victor entering the gazebo. "I was wondering where my lovely lady had wondered off to."

"Victor," I smiled. "When did you arrive?"

"Just now," He returned my smiled. "I went inside to find you, but Devon told me he saw you come out here."

"Ah," I sighed. "I cannot help but feel awkward. I am supposed to be the center of attention today, but I would rather be out here where it is quite."

"There is no need," Victor took my hand. "Anna, there is something I would like to ask you."

I turned to him and the look in his eyes made my heart jump into my throat. I had had the feeling that this moment was coming for a while, but knew that Victor would wait until the right time.

"Yes?" I could barely ask.

"Would you…?"

There was a scream from the direction of the house, which made us both turn in alarm. If the anticipation of the question had made my heart jump into my throat, what I saw made it plunge down into the pit of my stomach.

Flames! Tall and burning bright red, yellow, and orange were rising up from the mansion.

But how? The mansion was fine just moments ago! Was I imagining it? But more screams confirmed my fears, the voices of my brothers and sister and father crying out for help. My feet moved on their own, running from the gazebo and towards the mansion. Victor tried to grab my hand, but my hand had slipped out of his grip and I ran through the doorway.

The fire had spread faster than I had ever known possible. The doorway into the library had collapsed and I could hear my Father and siblings inside, struggling to escape. There was a crash than a crowd of screams than nothing; the floor above must have collapsed. I tried not to think about it. I pushed my way through the catching wood, the flames singeing the ends of my hair and the edges of my dress. The nursery was at the end of this hallway, I had to be sure my niece got out alive!

She was still there, sitting up in her crib. Her wails drowned out by the crackling and burning of the room around her. I ran to her and picked her up moments before the ceiling above her crib collapsed. I ran towards the exit, cradling her in my arms.

I could see the door; Victor was there in the doorway, relief on his face as I came back into view. I made my way to him, but stopped suddenly. I couldn't move anymore, it felt like my dress had gotten caught, but I turned and saw nothing. My feet would not move.

"Auntie?"

I looked down at the little face. So young, I wasn't going to let her die there. I set her down and pushed her towards the door.

"Run!"

She ran, Victor's arms outstretched to drag her out of the mansion. I saw a dark arm shoot out from behind me, reaching for my niece, reaching to drag her back to die in the fire.

"NO!" I grabbed the arm, stopping its progress. "You cannot have her!"

It shoved me back, slamming me against the main stairs. I saw my niece jump into Victor's arms, making him fall backwards and out of the way as the front doorway collapsed. I was trapped now, but I smiled and lay back against the stairs.

That was the last thing I remembered. When I awoke, I was still in my birthday dress, floating in a strange room filled with clocks, but not one read the same time as another one. Clockwork appeared to me and made me an offer. He had given me two options, he could both return time to me and send me back to the Human Realm to fight to protect what remained of my family or I could die and continue on to the other world.

I, of course, chose the former. He trained me for a while before he sent me back. The amount of time I was in the Ghost Realm, I could not exactly guess. However, when I did return, about 30 years had passed and I had not aged a single day since my death. But I had not realized that until I had gone to see Victor.

What he had become had shocked me; a reclusive, bitter old man on his death bed, who no longer held no love or kindness in his heart. What had happened? Where was my Victor? But he was there.

I appeared to him in my human form and saw the tears well up in his eyes. He reached out to me with a shaky wrinkled hand and I took it, kneeling next to the bed. His lips moved, as if trying to speak, but no words came out. His other hand then lifted slowly, pointing towards a small wooden box on the table next to the bed. I took it and opened; inside was the ring I now wear and a note. I opened the note and read what was written… wedding vows. Down at the bottom was a line, written not in Victor's fancy script that I remember, but in a clumsy hand that belonged to the man I now saw:

Wait for me. Forever and Always. Reborn.

Tears flowed down my cheeks. I slipped the ring out of the box and fit it onto my finger.

"Of course I will wait," I said softly. "As long as it takes, I promise I will wait for you to return to me."

He smiled a smile I remember. I watched as life left him, his hand becoming limp within my fingers.