Sam moaned as she woke up on Dan's bedroom floor once again. And once again, her head started throbbing. The fact that the room seemed as if it were spinning did nothing to improve her mood.
"Hm, it only took you twenty minutes this time," the phantom said from behind her, "Very impressive. Last time, it nearly took you forty-five."
"I am so not in the mood," Sam growled.
Still feeling incredibly dizzy, she stood to her feet only to tumble backwards. The phantom quickly caught her and helped her back up. She stumbled again and again he helped her up. This time, he wrapped her arm around his neck and Sam leaned onto him for support.
"I wasn't making a joke," he explained, "I meant it. My first time here, it took me almost two hours to wake up everytime I wanted to go to another entry. It took me almost three months before I stopped fainting."
Sam took in what the phantom had said. She knew Dan didn't write about any mystical creatures in his journal, so to hear the phantom tell her about his first few months only confirmed what she already knew. He wasn't from here. Which raised a question she had been wondering since getting trapped inside.
"What exactly are you doing here?" she asked.
"I told you, I'm the narrator. I'm narroting this little story."
"Yeah, I know. I mean," She pulled herself away from him, "Why are you here? This is Dan's journal. What do you have to do with it?"
"I narrate it. I'm telling his story."
"Yes, I know!" she pinched the bridge of her nose and furrowed her brows, "What I mean is why? Why are you in this journal! Why are you narrating this story! You weren't in it!"
"I wasn't?"
Sam gave him a questioning look, "Wait, you were?"
The phantom gave her the same amused smirk from when they met. There was something about that smirk that looked quite familiar. True, her head was still spinning, but Sam could have sworn she had seen the phantom from before. But from where, she couldn't quite place.
"Who are you?" she wondered out loud.
He turned around and headed for the door, "Shall we continue?"
Warily, Sam followed him down all the way to the parlor where Dan and Tucker sat on a green Chesterfield sofa chatting away about what she wasn't really sure.
"April 12, 1888," the phantom began, "Mayor Vlad Masters is currently away at City Hall dealing with town matters that really aren't of any importance to our story."
"Mayor Vlad Masters?" Sam asked, "He was the mayor?"
"Oh yes," he nodded, "Won by a landslide. Penelope was of course absolutely delighted to be the wife of a beloved mayor and Dashiel would use his status as the mayor's son, albeit, stepson, to bully everyone into doing what he wanted. And as for everyone else in the family? They couldn't care less. Being the mayor was their father's job. That was it."
"No!" a child screamed somewhere in the mansion. Dan and Tucker stopped their conversation and looked up, "I can't take it anymore!"
"Now, darling," Mrs. Masters said in a sickly sweet baby-ish voice, "We don't yell at our mothers."
"I'm thirteen years old!" the girl complained, "Quit talking to me like I"m five! And you are not my mother!"
"But I will be," she continued in a fake cheery voice, "And that means you need to start listening to me, dear girl. Or else you might find yourself into some trouble."
"What does that mean?" Sam glared at the doorway with her hands on her hips.
"What trouble?" Dan demanded.
He stomped off towards the library with Tucker quick on his heels. Sam and her guide followed them and saw Mrs. Masters bent down as if she were speaking with someone smaller. However, the girl was already on her way out. A bit of a sky blue dress was all Sam could see as its owner quickly ran out.
"What trouble?" Dan demanded again with his arms folded.
"Oh, Daniel," Mrs. Masters sighed, straightening herself.
"Dan." He and Tucker both said.
"Yes, of course, darling. Children need to mind their mothers."
"I never did," Sam remarked, making the phantom give out an amused snort.
"You're not her mother," he snarled.
"But I will be soon. Your sister has gone without a good female role model in her life for quite long enough. All I'm trying to do is to get her to understand that she needs to learn discipline, and the only way a good woman learns discipline is through another good woman."
"And you consider yourself a good woman?" Dan snorted, "That's a laugh."
"Well, laugh all you like. It's not your opinion that matters, it's your father's. And he apparently thinks that I'm good enough of a woman for his daughter."
Dan and Tucker both glared at her. She didn't seem the slightest bit disturbed. She just looked at them sternly as if they were misbehaving children. After thirty seconds, a Latina woman approached the doorway looking extremely peeved.
"Your idiot son is locked in my pantry again!" she exclaimed, "This is the fourth time this week!"
"So?" Mrs. Masters turned towards her, "Get him out!"
"I can't! Ember took my key!"
"I'll get him out," Dan sighed.
He and Tucker followed the girl to the kitchen pantry. On the way, Sam overheard the two men conversing about the confrontation.
"Did you hear her!" Dan whispered out of the servant's earshot, "'She needs to learn discipline.' What the hell did she mean by that?"
"I don't know," Tucker replied, "I mean, yeah, your sister a bit more outspoken than other girls, but that doesn't mean she's not disciplined."
"You know what she told me last night? Penelope is evil. Pure evil."
"What else is new?"
"No, I mean, this is my sister saying this. She never says that about anybody! Everybody is great in her eyes! To hear her say Penelope is evil. Ugh. Makes things extra chilling."
"So tell your father then! He listens to her."
"You mean he did listen to her. Now it's Penny this or Penny that. He's obsessed with that woman! It's like she hypnotized him or something!"
"Maybe she did," Tucker shrugged, "With a personality like that, I wouldn't put it past her."
"Hey!" they finally reached the pantry door, "Get me out of here! I can't see a damn thing in here!"
"Coming," Dan groaned, "Paulina, you have a hairpin?"
"Dave? Get me out of here!"
"It's Dan," he sighed, kneeling to the lock with Paulina's pin.
"Hmm," Sam stroked her chin as an evil idea began to pop in her head, "That pantry could actually be useful when Dashiel drives me insane."
"Unfortunately, it won't," the phantom said, turning to her, "Paulina and Ember both got so fed up with having to constantly having Dashiel lock himself in time after time again, they took the door down a week later."
"Damn."
As Dan jimmied with the lock muttering curses under his breath, the great wind from before picked up again. Sam let out a groan and reached for her veil.
"Not again."
