Part of this chapter is going to break your heart and part of it will excite you all. Things are most certainly changing in Amity Park…
So, you remember my little summary for this story I have set up here? Well, it finally appears. ;D
Also, the meaning of the code is revealed in this chapter, just so you're aware. My clues are still up on my Twitter. If you didn't check them out, you missed some very helpful tips.
sohrem666, I pm-ed you the answer to your question, as I'm not quite ready to reveal it to the widespread audience quite yet.
Summary: Samantha Manson, or Sam, has many things to deal with; her parent's disappointment, she knows all of the police force by name and face (and not because she wants to), moving to a new city, her grandmother's slowly dying, her Necromancy is getting stronger, she has no instructor to teach her, and she's not exactly the most popular girl in school. As she learns about this new city, she learns of its mysterious secrets and as to why so many haunts happen there. While trying to find out how to help this city, she finding that she slowly crushing on a kind of cute geeky boy whose parents hunt supernatural things. AU. She eyed the yellow tape, daring it to keep her from the school grounds. After a moment, she decided to ignore the forbidding warning of the black DO NOT CROSS letters.
Disclaimer: I do not hold any legal rights to Danny Phantom or to any of the characters you are going to read about. This story, however, is my own original idea, with a nod to Meg Cabbot's Mediator series and Kelly Armstrong's Darkest Powers trilogy for inspiring me somewhat.
Do Not Cross
Chapter 13
Holiness
"With your feet in the air and your head on the groundTry this trick and spin it, yeahYour head will collapseBut there's nothing in itAnd you'll ask yourselfWhere is my mind…"The Pixies, "Where is My Mind?"
Sam bounced on her toes as she waited to be allowed in to her grandmother's hospital room. They had been running tests on her all afternoon and the girl couldn't wait any longer to hear that familiar voice. They had a lot to catch up on.
"Stop that." her mother said, grabbing her arm.
"Pam." her father said, unclamping his wife's hand from their daughter. "Samantha is the closest human being to my mother. She's just excited. Let her be."
Normally, Sam would have sent the woman a gleeful smirk but her grandmother was awake. That was more important than sticking it to her mother.
She darted to the bedside when they were told they could go in. She grabbed her grandmother's frail hand and held it close. She had sorely miss the woman more than words could express.
The elderly woman looked up at her with glassy eyes.
"Sammy?" she asked, her voice coming out in a croak.
"Yeah." Sam said quietly. "It's me. How do you feel?"
"Like hell."
"Mom and dad are here."
"Hi, mom." Jeremy said, taking his mother's other hand. "We're glad to see you awake."
"I feel awful." she said. "Tell the nurse to give me more drugs. I ache all over. All their poking and prodding bruised my bones. Jem, be a dear please."
Sam's father nodded and he went to go find a nurse.
"Do you need anything else?" Pamela asked, standing back a little. The two women had never really gotten along, Sam knew. Something happened between the two of them before she had been born.
"Some food would be nice. Sneak some in here, will you?"
Pamela pursed her lips.
"Alright." she said, nodding and leaving.
Sam barely waited a second before catching her grandmother up on current events.
"We found your message." she said. "Danny, Tucker, and me. We're training. A teacher of ours, Mr. Lancer, is a Wiccan. Did you know there were so many of us here? Anyone can become part of our world, at least that's what Mr. Lancer says. Danny's learned a lot. And then there's Val — oh gosh, Val! She might be a Witch. Bubelah, what am I going to tell her?"
She chuckled, patting her granddaughter's hand.
"Slowly now, Samantha."
"Valerie Gray. She's in a few of my classes. Something happened to her. Tucker and Danny think that the Fenton Ghost Portal is the cause of it. It's, like, radioactive or something. It's causing people to change."
"Ghost portals can't do that. They don't cause a change to a normal human. It takes years of exposure to ectoplasm to cause a change. Or a direct infusion of ectoplasm into the bloodstream. Or —"
"Or an accident like Danny had." Sam said.
"But all of those require a magical object to help the change. Most of them were destroyed at the turn of the century for fear that the Reapers might get their hands on them."
"There wasn't any magical object present when Danny was changed."
"Really?" her grandmother said, an eyebrow cocked. "Then what is that around your neck?"
Sam touched the locket her mother had given her that fateful summer day. She had forgotten all about it, if she were to be completely honest.
She looked down at it. It didn't seem magical. But then again, most never did.
"It's a powerful one." her grandmother said. "Keep it on you at all times."
"But what if —"
"No one else will change. I promise. That magic is all used up. Only so many changes can be made with one item. Now, tell me about this Valerie Gray's change. Can you think of anything that may have caused it?"
She bit her lip and thought about it. There must have been something she was forgetting…
She straightened.
"Mom mentioned some gossip about Valerie had been injecting herself with something. I know for a fact that she doesn't do drugs."
"Someone changed her and she has no idea of what she is capable of?"
"Mr. Lancer can teach her, too."
"Three pupils is more than enough."
"But I'll be back under your tutelage, won't I?"
"Sam, I am old." the elderly woman said, for once sounding her age. "I was old long before you were even born. I am older now and if I continue to live, I will only get even older."
"What are you saying?"
She smiled at her granddaughter. It was a peaceful and sad, but content. And she said, "Sam… Samantha… I am ready to die."
Danny sat glaring at Vlad Masters the entire dinner. How could he? How could he buy Nasty Burger? It was the one place he liked to hang out when he wasn't home, at school, or with Tucker and Sam somewhere.
And his father sat boasting — boasting, of all things — about how great a friend his was, looking out for his children.
He felt betrayed. How could his father be so traitorous?
By glancing at Jazz, he could tell she felt the same way.
The two of them excused themselves from the table to do their homework.
"Do you think any of the teachers would mind if I told them I was too exhausted to do any work?" Danny asked his sister.
"You going to bed?" she said, surprised.
They both knew he was a night owl and that he had gone three days without sleep last year. Neither of them told their parents, although they both knew their mother suspected something at the time. They both silently agreed that it was written somewhere in the sibling code. Tattling was not the answer. Blackmail, on the other hand, was acceptable if the dirt was good enough.
"Yeah."
"I don't think anyone would mind too much. Just say that mom and dad were working on a new experiment all night and you had to help them. They'd believe that."
"You've tried it?"
"Once or twice. It got me out of turning a paper in on time."
"You? Not turn in homework when it was due?" Danny said, laughing.
"I was given an extended deadline. Besides, it was when mom and dad were working on that damn portal. I wonder how that thing even got started." she said, tapping her chin. "According to mom's notes from one of her logs, a portal to the world of the dead can only be created if blood it spilled. Usually, it was a human sacrifice. Mediums would —"
"Necromancers."
"Huh?"
"They're called Necromancers. They can summon the dead and send them back. They use pig's blood, not a human's."
Jazz gaped at him.
"Where did you learn that?"
"From Sam."
"Of course, Sam. It always has to do with Sam." Jazz said, rolling her eyes.
"Whatever." Danny said, going into his room and closing the door. He could hear his sister ranting and raving on outside. He stripped of his clothes for the day, depositing them by the end of his bed, and changing into his pajamas.
He sprawled himself out on his bed and closed his eyes, drifting off to sleep. He had maybe been out for five minutes before his phone went off. It was from Sam.
He shot up and read her message.
She wants to die.
He blinked at the glowing screen. It took a moment for him to realize she was talking about. Her grandmother.
He quickly typed up a reply and waited for the response.
Why? he asked.
It took her several minutes but she did respond.
Danny, what do I do?
He really didn't know. What could he say to comfort her? What could he do? Talk the old woman out of it? There was only one honest answer he could give:
I don't know.
She walked through Amity Park. It was dark and there was a heavy fog that clung to her skin and every breath she took. She didn't know where she was recognized the street, but she couldn't place where it was. Was she near the school? Yes, she was. She could see the building. It was marked off by police tape. What had happened to Casper High?
Slowly, she walked around the school, staying just beyond the yellow tape, trying to remember the accident that had caused this.
She pressed her mind for the memory. It was hazy, but there was a lot of screaming and fear. What had caused that?
She eyed the yellow tape, daring it to keep her from the school grounds. After a moment, she decided to ignore the forbidding warning of the black DO NOT CROSS letters.
Her bare feet crunched over the broken window glass. She knew she should feel some sort of pain, but her nerve endings were shot. Her body pulsed with a numb beat.
She gulped, not liking how everything stuck in her throat. It felt as if something was invading her body. She pulled at the necklace ever-present around her neck, hoping to loosen some of the tension it created.
She passed through the school doors and warily walled down the dark hallway. Lockers were bent in, papers were scattered, burned, and coated in a layer of dust. Rubble clumped together in odd spots. Here and there, she spotted familiar school supplies. She spotted Jamie Clarkson's spiral notebook that they would swap when they wanted to talk in class.
Finding nothing on the first floor, she moved to the second story. She passed by abandoned classrooms, with desks overturned and littering the ground. More dented lockers and astray objects, more dust, more disaster.
What on earth happened?
She stepped on a weak section of flooring. It groaned beneath her bare feet. She tentatively stepped forward, it groaned again. She prayed it would hold her weight as she continued on.
It didn't.
The floor opened up beneath her and she fell down into the darkness.
.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.
Jazz jumped on her bed, the sheets twisted with her legs. Sweat chilled her skin and made it sticky, her pajamas clung to her torso. She gasped in deep breaths and prayed that her heart would calm down.
A knock on her door, while startling, was a comfort to hear. Someone other than her was awake in the darkness. The door creaked open and her brother's messy-haired head poke in.
"You okay?" Danny asked quietly. "I heard you mumbling."
Jazz gaped at him. He was dressed in his street clothes and not his pajamas, like he should have been.
"Where are you going?" she asked. "You in a gang?"
Sam's alone tonight because her parents stayed and the hospital and she thinks someone might be trying to break into her house."
"Then why didn't she call the police?"
"She did." Danny said after a moment. "She just wants other people there. Big house, she's all alone. It's kind of creepy, you know?"
"Would she mind if I came with?" Jazz asked, tossing off her covers. A shiver ran up her spine.
"I don't think she would."
"Give me a minute to get ready then."
"Bring extra clothes with." he said, ducking out of his sister's room, closing the door behind him to give her some privacy. She could hear him mumbling as he talked on his phone.
Jazz quickly tossed off her nightwear and grabbed a comfortable sweater and worn blue jeans. She brushed her hair and grabbed an extra outfit and her school things — might as well, she didn't know how long they'd be there.
Danny was waiting with his schoolbag. He looked tired as he leaned against the wall. Jazz half expected him to doze off then and there.
"You ready?" he asked, looking at her.
"Sure." was her reply.
He gestured for his sister to follow him. Quietly, they both made their way downstairs and out the backdoor. Danny closed the door as silently as he could and then made a dash for the shed. Jazz knew that the high fence needed to be fixed badly. Danny was supposed to have done that over the summer, but he never got around to it. She wondered how much longer their mother would wait before doing it herself.
Danny pushed back the loose boards and allowed Jazz to pass through before leaving the yard himself. He set the boards back and started walking in the direction of the Manson mansion.
"How often do you sneak out?" Jazz asked, looking around nervously. It was three in the morning, after all, and quite chilly. She wished she had thought to grab her coat from the closet.
Danny shrugged, which was an infuriating gesture. He tended to do this a lot since befriending Sam. Jazz wondered what was up with them. There was times they seemed like the were close friends and there were just as many times they seemed closer than that. It was indubitable that since the girl came, there was a lot of changes in Jazz's younger brother.
She tried to make small talk, but Danny seemed more concerned with getting to the Manson place unnoticed. He was very stealthy and he obviously knew the police route well. They were never spotted once.
The siblings reached the mansion in less than fifteen minutes. Tucker and Sam were outside, talking by the door. They looked up when the Fentons approached.
"Hey, Jazz." Tucker greeted, pounding Danny's fist. "Early morning, huh?"
"Yeah." Jazz said quietly. Their voices carried far through the empty streets. She felt horrible about destroying the solitude.
"Let's go inside." Sam suggested, opening the door. They followed her in.
"How long ago did the police leave?" Jazz asked.
"Police? Oh, er, not too long ago. Tucker just missed them."
"Oh, okay."
"So, why are you here, Jazz?" Tucker asked. "No offense or anything. I'm really curious."
"I…" she said. "I've been having some weird dreams lately. I woke up from one, a new one, and Danny invited me."
"A new nightmare?" Danny said, surprised. "But I thought…"
He trailed off, falling into his own thoughts.
"Hey, Sam? I'm going to the library."
"Okay." she said, looking confused. They watched as he sprinted up the stairs, carrying his and Jazz's things. "Tuck, want to get my notes out of my room? Jazz, come with me. We'll make some tea or something to keep ourselves awake."
Sam lead her to the kitchen, where she flipped on a light and dug around in the cabinets, looking for some tea.
Jazz checked the tea kettle and found no water in it. She filled it up with cold water.
Sam took it from her, setting it on the stove. She twisted the knob and a blue flame licked the edges of the kettle. She prepared a pot and a little infuser. They waited in silence for the shrill screech to rise to a decent level before turning it off.
When the tea was brewed, cookies and other treats set on the tray, and they had cream and sugar, the two headed upstairs to the library.
"So what was this dream about?" Sam asked.
"I don't really remember." Jazz admitted. "I know that I was falling at some point, when I woke up. I think I might have been in Amity Park."
"Maybe your dream was trying to tell you something?"
"Maybe. Hey, Sam, does Danny sneak out to meet you a lot?"
"Maybe once or twice, but not really since the summer."
"Then he sneaks out to do other things."
"I doubt it, Jazz." Sam said, rolling her eyes, as Jazz opened the library door. "I mean, this is Danny we're talking about."
"Why are we talking about me?" Danny asked, looking up from a book.
This was the first time in a long time that Jazz saw her brother reading from something that wasn't for a class. The book was a large one, too, and looked to weigh almost as much as he did. Where on earth did he get that thing?
"Don't worry about it, Danny." Sam said, setting down the tray.
She poured them each a cup and distributed them to her friends, taking a spot at a different table than Danny and Tucker, who were both reading the large book. Jazz took a seat next to Sam.
"What are you working on?" she asked, sipping from her tea cup.
"Hm? Oh, Morse code." Sam said. "Know anything about translating it?"
"Not particularly, no. Let me see what you have."
Sam handed her the paper. Numbers were strewn across the pages, as well as theories. Jazz ignored them and paid attention to the numbers.
1, 2, 5, 2, 2, 1, 0, 9, 1, 9,1 5, 1, 6, 9.
1, 4, 5, 8, 1, 6, 1, 2, 0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 1, 6.
1, 5, 2, 0.
5, 1, 3, 1, 5, 2, 3, 9.
"Have you tried coordinates?" she asked.
"Yeah and I got some crappy answers." Sam said, showing her that work. "I've tried several things but nothing worked."
"What about combining numbers? Not like adding them, but to get teens and twenties?"
"I hadn't thought about that."
Jazz got to work. Every now and again, she would second guess herself, but she never changed her answers.
12, 5, 22, 10, 9, 19, 15, 16, 9.
14, 5, 8, 16, 1, 20, 20, 21, 16.
15, 20.
5, 13, 15, 23, 9.
Sam read the numbers over her shoulder, typing them into her computer and breaking them up to test for coordinates. She sipped her tea as she waited for the results.
Jazz guessed she was using some high-tech program not available in the US, and it was confirmed by the strange Asian symbols she didn't recognize. (Where those Chinese or Japanese?) She shrugged it off and looked back down at the numbers. They began to swirl in front of her eyes and shift towards letters.
She sighed, rubbing her eyes.
"What's up?" Sam asked.
"Nothing." Jazz said. "I think I might be seeing things. The numbers started to look like letters."
The computer program beeped.
Sam looked over the results and shook her head. Nothing.
"So, what's this about letters?" she asked.
The two of them began trying to apply letters to the numbers. The two of them frowned at their results.
LEVJISOPI
NEHPATTUP
OT
EMOWI
"That doesn't seem right." Sam said slowly.
"There must be something we're missing." Jazz said. She tried several other things, each time getting a weird result. She was about to admit defeat when a thought struck her. She mixed several numbers around, pairing them with the one beneath it. She tried that. It was still odd. "What if I…?"
She pulled out all of the consonants, setting them in their own special column. Sam watched as she paired them up and blinked when she arranged the code, quickly translating it.
Sam took the paper from Jazz and tried out the code. Jazz watched as the girl's face twisted from curiosity to alarm. She looked over to see what had been written.
KATHERINE
MAGNUSSON
IS
ALIVE
Dun dun dun! How many of you guessed that?
So, I debated whether or not to post my code, then I decided that I should, so tah-dah, here's my code! To understand it, the first letter is the end result, the second letter is where the first letter is now positioned in the alphabet, and the number at the end is the second letter's number of the alphabet that has been used to represent the first letter. Confusing? You'll understand in a moment.
A - E - 5
B - C - 3
C - D - 4
D - F - 6
E - I - 9
F - G - 7
G - H - 8
I - O - 15
J - K - 11
K - L - 12
L - M - 13
M - N - 14
N - P - 16
O - U - 21
P - Q - 17
Q - R - 18
R - S - 19
S - T - 20
T - V - 22
U - A - 1
V - W - 23
W - X - 24
X - Y - 25
Y - Z - 26
Z - B - 2
This code will be used again in the future, just so you are aware.