Phantoms of Amity Park

Chapter 8

Their flight to Georgia was quiet and uneventful. Anna led them as they flew and she could feel Vlad's eyes on her nearly the whole way. In the days until their departure, her suspicion that something had changed or was eating at him had grown stronger. Now there was always that look on his face when he looked at her, as if there was something he wanted to say or ask, but couldn't find the words or was too afraid of what she would say.

Her suspicions were accurate, Vlad was watching her, he had been watching her, thinking about her for the past couple days. So much had been running through his mind since he had read that diary, he had been able to think of nothing else. So many questions; many he had been able to answer, but many still had no answers.

Did he have an attraction to Anna? Of course! She was a beautiful woman, intelligent, compassionate, faithful not only to whom Victor used to be but who he was now, himself. He had been put off by it at first, angered by the assumptions that had been made about him, but now he really didn't mind so much. Reading Victor's words and finding for himself the similarities he had to the man he once was, not just the physical ones but the emotional ones as well had made him rethink his feelings on the situation, and his feelings for Anna.

Did he love Anna? He didn't know. Over the past couple days the feelings had grown strangely quickly. He had noticed them before all of this had started, when she was just his secretary. Back then he had blamed them on the fact that she resembled Maddie, but now that was out the window completely. But love what such a big word, one he had only ever used when talking about Maddie; but now his attraction to Maddie was dimmed by the one that had grown to Anna. Now, whenever thoughts of Anna entered his mind unwarranted, he would feel his heart swell and warmness coarse throughout his veins. He wanted to constantly be around her, but stay away from her at the same time. This was a dangerous situation. Even though she was technically older than him, he still appeared to be more than 15 years older then her.

What if he gave into his feelings for Anna? Would he be willing to give up his current evil lifestyle to be with her? He had thought hardest about this one. What was the original point of this lifestyle of using his ghost powers for evil and personal gain? -To get Maddie back and have the family that he had wanted. With Anna, he would have love and family and wouldn't have to do another single evil deed, would never have to again. But would he be able to? Could he so easily give up what has become so natural? Would she even accept him after everything he's done? Would the rest of the city even accept them with the age difference?

Anna's attention was drawn down below to the outline of a large lake among the trees. She turned to Danny and Vlad and motioned them to follow, drawing Vlad's attention away from his ongoing internal struggle and back to the business at hand. They landed on the bank of the lake, next to an old structure like looked as if a stiff breeze could tear it down.

Danny looked around, "This is it?"

Anna nodded, but said nothing.

"But… where's the mansion? The gazebo? The gardens?" Danny kept searching the landscape as he asked.

Vlad put a hand on the boy's shoulder, stopping him. Danny drew away with a snarl, still untrusting as always. Vlad said nothing and pointed to the structure that they were standing next to. It was the rotting frame of a gazebo, overtaken by wild roses and vines. Danny stared up at it, mouth wide, but snapped it shut when he noticed the sad look on Anna face as she too looked at it.

She must have realized she was still in her ghostly form and changed back, Danny and Vlad followed. If anyone had been around, they must have looked strange in the landscape; a teenager, a businessman, and a young woman standing in the middle of an overgrown garden.

Anna shifted her shoulders again, the dull throb growing there again as it had been for the past few days. Vlad had noticed the movement and went up to her, mistaking the motion of something else, placing a hand on one of her upper arms to steady her.

She looked up at him and smiled weakly, "I'm okay, just…"

"Do you want to leave?" He asked.

She shook her head, "No, I need to do this."

Danny, feeling a little grossed out by Vlad's obvious display, took in their surroundings again, but carefully this time. It was true what he had said before, there wasn't much here, the only structure really standing was the gazebo. Upon closure inspection, however, he spotted something father up the cracked and deformed cobblestone walkway that barely managed to cut through the overgrowth.

"Is that it?" He said, drawing the other's attention and pointing up at what he saw.

Among the brush and overgrowth was looked like the cracked foundation of a building. Upon more careful inspection, the burned and rotting remains of the first story of a large house could be found. The walls barely remained, rising about a foot high and dangerously jagged. The fireplace stood off to one side, discolored and crumbling, the smokestack having fallen over long ago either from the fire or from age. A few steps of the stairs also still stood, the vines growing over them looking strangely like running water.

Vlad and Danny watched as Anna left them and made her way through the brush towards the remains of her family home. They follow, worried. She had not said much and she was giving off an air of melancholy ever since they had arrived. Danny was starting to doubt how good this idea really was.

She stopped in front of the stairs, looking down at them. When she turned around, the two of them were in what would have been the front doorway, but it was like she couldn't see them. Her eyes were misted over, almost like they were the night they had discovered her secret, but it was different; it was as if she was seeing through them at something else. Anna reached out, tears starting to build in her eyes to the point of spilling.

Vlad and ran forward, taking her outstretched hand and drawing her out of whatever trance she was in, drawing her away from her spot in front of the stairs, "Anna."

Danny had rushed forward as well, "Are you okay?! What happened?"

Anna shook the clouds out of her mind, "I'm okay, it's just… thin here."

"Thin?"

She nodded, stretching out a hand and moving it through the air, as if she was moving it through something, "There are spots in our world, like this one, where terrible events occurred. At these spots, the barrier between this world and the ghost realm are very thin, the energy of the people who died there remains for many years and energy from the ghost realm bleeds through. After many more years, natural portals to the ghost realm form in these spots."

"This is one of these spots?" Vlad asked.

"Yes, I may have said this before, but I see and feel the ghost realm differently than you two." She stopped her hand and drew it out of what she was waving it through. "There's a lot of residual energy here, and with my connection to the ghost realm, I can visibly see it. It isn't surprising with everyone who died here. It wasn't just me and my family who died here that day; there were at least a dozen slaves in the mansion as well. The energy is so thick I can literally run my hand through it."

"Will you be okay?" Danny asked.

Anna nodded with a weak smile, "I will, let's just do what we came here to do."

"Right, um," Danny looked around, scratching his head. "There isn't really much here in the way of clues. Did you guys have a cellar or something?"

"We had a wine cellar, under the kitchen. That would have been…" Anna thought for a moment, looking around the shortened walls, trying to remember the layout, then pointed to the back left corner. "Over there! The kitchen was in the back corner over there, the wine cellar was put in right underneath it. I can still see the well over there farther back next to the trees."

"Okay," Danny changed back into his ghost form. "You stay here. I'll go check it out and come get you if I find anything."

Danny fazed through the foundation, leaving Anna alone with Vlad. Vlad must have realized that he was still holding Anna's hand and quickly let it go, moving to scratch his cheek awkwardly.

"Thank you," Anna smiled.

Vlad looked at her, then drew the handkerchief out of his jacket pocket, holding it out to her, "Here, you may want to wipe your face before Daniel gets back."

Anna blinked and felt her cheeks, they were wet. Embarrassed at having cried again, she took the ornate piece of cloth, drying her cheeks. But she paused, lowering the cloth from her face. Vlad looked at her, concerned.

Anna shook her head in response to his look, "What I had seen before you pulled me back. It was like I was reliving my death all over again. I could see my niece running away, the arm reaching for her, you… Victor… in the doorway with that look on his face; realization and horror."

"I'm glad I pulled you back to reality then," Vlad said, looking away, embarrassed.

Anna's face flushed at the sincerity in his voice. She quickly finished wiping her face and handed him back his handkerchief. That look was there again, there was something that he wanted to say, but this time he did start to speak.

"Anna, there's something I've been meaning to ask you."

"Hm?"

Vlad cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably, "Are you… still angry about what happened in the lab? About what you found out about me?"

The question didn't surprise her, she had had the feeling that the subject would come up again sooner or later. Anna looked up at him and saw the hesitation in his eyes and she wondered what was really going on behind those blue eyes.

She sighed and answered, "There is nothing that you can say that can justify what you had done." His head started to hang, but she continued. "I wish I could say that I didn't understand why you did it, why you did anything that you've done. But I do; I've been alone for over 200 years. If anyone understands loneliness and the desire for something you believe that is due to you, it's me."

Vlad looked up at her to find her looking away, the melancholy on her face making his heart ache. He felt himself reach out to her without telling his arm to do so, wanting to hold her, to make the pain they both had felt for so long to go away.

"Even though I know what you've done, I despise everything you've done, I can't help how I feel," she continued. "You're here, the same as you were before; the same spirit, the same personality, the same man standing here before me, just with a different name. You may not believe me, but believe me when I say that I would jump into the fire all over again if only to have the chance to be with you."

"Anna," Vlad said and she looked up at him.

For a moment, it seemed as if he had been in this moment with her before, standing in this spot in a different time having a similar conversation. It felt right, standing here with her, he couldn't deny it… he didn't want to deny it. Vlad's urge to hold her grew stronger and he would have done it if the moment had not been interrupted.

Danny reappeared and changed back to his normal form, "Anna, I couldn't find… should I come back?"

The two adults stepped away from each other, Vlad folding his handkerchief to place it back in his jacket pocket.

"No, um, what was that?" Anna said a little distracted.

"Okay…" Danny didn't seem convinced, but he didn't pry any more. "There's nothing under the house. The wine cellar's caved in and there's no other basement."

Anna sighed, "Maybe there was nothing after all."

There was a long moment of silence, Vlad had put his hand on Anna's shoulder after a minute; a comforting gesture Danny was not used to him displaying. Danny thought hard, there had to be something here. This whole mess started here, didn't it?

Then it occurred to him, "Anna, does your family have a private cemetery?"

The question took her of guard but after a moment, she saw Danny's train of thought. "Yes, it's about quarter of a mile out from here."

"That far?" Vlad asked, surprised.

Anna nodded, looking up at him, "The family founders originally placed it back in the 1500s. Father said that it's always kept very private, that there were secrets kept there."

"What kind of secrets?" Danny asked.

Anna shook her head with another sigh, "I don't actually know. Father forbade me from ever going there. He only ever allowed Andrew and Marie to go with him whenever he visited the cemetery, and that was only after they married."

"That's peculiar," Vlad raised an eyebrow. "You weren't even allowed to visit the graves of your grandparents if you wanted to?"

"No, that's just how it was."

"Sounds like it's worth a look to me," Danny said. "Your dad was hiding something."

It was an idea that didn't sit well with Anna. Such a kind and wonderful father as the one she had had been hiding a something from her, her whole life? But she agreed anyway and they made their way down the overgrown path to the cemetery. Would the answers really be there?

ooooo

The trek to the cemetery was rough, the path, that would have been fit for carriage travel 200 years ago, now barely fit for foot travel. Brambles and prickle veins caught at their pants legs as if purposefully impeding their progress, but they pressed on through the bushes. Parting the final patch of brush, the cemetery was revealed to them.

It was a sad, grey place. Where the ruins of the mansion was overgrown with vines and the wildness that had become the gardens, this place was dead; the grass was stiff and brown, crunching like dried leaves under their feet, the foliage of the forest stopped dead at the edge of the forest, as if afraid to grow any farther. The cemetery was laid out in a circular shape. At the very center was a stone mausoleum with the graves of generations of Van Ratten's laid out around it.

"Looks like your suspicions were accurate Daniel," Vlad said, impressed by the boy's intuition as they headed through the circular rows of gravestones. "This place looks… corrupted."

"Well, if something was going to hide somewhere before taking out a whole family, this seemed like an obvious place," Danny motioned to the mausoleum. "The answers have to be in there."

Anna was already heading to the stone building, walking past the graves of her ancestors, nearly 300 years of Van Ratten's that were buried here before the fire seemingly wiped them out. The two followed her quickened pace, noticing that she was purposefully keeping her eyes forward and trained on their destination. She didn't want to look down to accidently catch sight of her own grave among the rows.

Reaching the mausoleum, it was a generic looking structure, considering the time frame it was from; mid to late 1500s, when the family first settled on this plot of land. Well, it would if there had been a door, but there was not entrance to be found built into the structure.

"How are we supposed to get in?" Vlad asked in annoyance.

"Maybe there's something on the inside?" Danny offered, his clever ideas running out.

"What sense would that make?" Vlad mocked, "Putting a lever on the inside of the building in order to get inside. Before Anna there was no other halfa Daniel."

Danny scowled, "I don't hear you coming up with any better ideas!"

Anna did her best to ignore their arguing. Feeling along the walls for a hidden button, switch, something that would give some sort of clue as to how to get in. Her hand swept over what felt like etchings of letters in the stone. With haste, she brushed away the dirt and grime from the writing, accidently cutting her hand on a loose stone in the process. She drew her hand away quickly with a yelp, drawing the other's attentions away from their current bickering.

"What happened?" Danny rounded the corner, Vlad right behind him, catching sight of the blood dripping from Anna's palm. "Anna! You're hurt! What…?"

Anna dismissed his panic, "It's only a scratch. It's not that bad."

Vlad wasn't convinced, coming over to her and taking her cut hand. He had pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket again and was wrapping it tight around her hand to stop the bleeding.

"This well have to do for now," He said. "We'll properly treat it when we get home."

Anna felt her cheeks start to flush and she turned away to the etching that she had uncovered, "Look at this."

The etching was faded from being open to the elements for so many years, but could still be read with some effort given. It read:

Only thine own blood can open thy door

"Great, old English," Danny rubbed his forehead. "Shakespearian poetry was never my best subject."

Vlad rolled his eyes, but was interrupted before he could insult the boy's lack of literary knowledge.

"It's okay, I have a feeling of what it's asking for," Anna stooped down and spread some of her blood that had dripped onto the ground onto her uninjured hand. "But I'm not getting my wound infected more than it may already be for this."

The other two watched as she spread her own blood on the etching. Danny's stomach churned at the sight and suddenly wished he hadn't had such a big breakfast that morning. A sudden crunching of stone moving against stone made them all jump back. The stone wall in front of them started to slide down into the ground, revealing not a room of coffins lining the walls, but a staircase leading down deep into the ground farther then they could see.

"Well, that's not threatening at all," Vlad said flatly then gave Anna a concerned glance. "Are you alright to continue?"

Anna nodded, staring down the staircase; he must have been worried since what happened at the mansion ruins, "I'm fine. Let's do this."

With that, they cautiously started down the staircase.