Chapter 4
Danny looked at himself in the common room's mirror as the other servants of the house were getting ready for breakfast behind him at the long table. He fixed his hair, trying to get it to lay flat as he listened to the voices behind him. From what he understood in the info dump he had gotten yesterday, a house of this size would normally have more servants to run the place but after the scare that had happened from the ghosts, the family lost anyone not loyal or had a choice. He stole a glance into the large room he shared with Tucker, counting eight beds, six empty for the time being. Tucker was bent over himself, sitting on his bed, tying his shoes on as Danny looked in. The only other male servant of the house was Mr. Price, though he had his own room being the butler and keeper of the wine cellar. The only other person that lived down in the basement was the house cook, Mrs. Coleman, who had her own room beside the kitchen. Sam got housed in a room up in the attic, taking what had been Sherly's room as housekeeper. Sherly had given up the room to rejoin the youngest in the house, the little girl Danny remembered seeing yesterday before all of this.
"Having any luck?" Sam's voice asked as metal sounded her approach before she appeared in the mirror behind him.
Danny looked at her reflection as he dropped his shoulders. "No, my hair's always been like this," he admitted.
"Have you tried wetting it?" Sam asked, reaching up to try her hand at patting down his black hair.
"With what?" Danny retorted. Lowering his voice he added, "It's not like indoor plumbing exists yet."
"It does and the Shaffer's are planning on adding it to this house," Sam said, holding her hands above his head and tilting her head as if to see something new. She ran a hand through his black hair once more, shaking her head before giving up on it and dropping her arms down. "Jeanette should've filled your basin by now, you can use that."
"Uh, what?" Danny asked, turning around to face the girl.
"Basin; looks like a water pitcher and bowl," Sam explained, glancing in the mirror to see behind herself. Danny shifted his eyes over to notice Mrs. Coleman bringing out the servants' breakfast, the only meal Danny wasn't expected to serve. In a lowered voice Sam added, "I wish there was more time…"
Danny shifted his eyes back to the girl only to see her shake her head, dismissing what she had said before turning around to face the table. Danny noticed the metal sound out again as she moved, getting him to ask, "What's that?"
Sam stopped, half turning to look over her shoulder only to realize quickly what he meant. She reached down to the metal strand of keychains hanging from the belt of her skirt and asked, "This? It's a chatelaine. I've got a pin cushion, pen, scissors, calling card case, magnifier, pocket watch and a mirror on here."
"So keychains?" Danny checked, remembering not long ago it had been a fad to have as many keychains attached at once back in their own time.
Sam dropped them back to fall in front of her skirt and gave a shrug. "Sure, but metal."
"So what's for breakfast?" Tucker asked, appearing behind Danny as he put his arm over the teen's shoulder to look over at the table.
"Nothing until Virgil gets here," Mrs. Coleman said, crossing her arms over her large chest.
Danny took a look around the room, surprised to see Jeanette, the youngest servant, and Shirley standing by their place at the table in waiting. The long table gave another sign how many servants were supposed to be in this house, having ten chairs and a bench seat that could add another three people to the table. Danny glanced over at the clock on the wall, its pendulum keeping time below it, and read the hands to read a minute to seven.
Sam gave Danny and Tucker a look, flicking her eyes to the table before taking her spot behind the chair to the right of the chair at the head of the table. She looked at the chairs across from hers, giving Danny a silent hint they were supposed to be there.
Danny gave Tucker a glance, getting his best friend to follow him to their seats. He gave a look to the rest of the table, watching Mrs. Coleman place the covered dishes around the table as Sherly and Jeanette stood behind their chairs with an empty chair between them and Sam for the cook.
"Sorry for the delay," Victor said as he walked into the common room. He fixed his tie as he stood at the head of the table, looking at Danny as he said, "The master ordered a new piece of furniture and it arrived early. Daniel and Tucker, I need you to go up and bring it into the library. They want it unpacked and sitting on the table."
Danny turned his eyes to Tucker, noticing his food motivated friend was about to say something. Quickly cutting him off, Danny looked back at Victor and said, "Right away, Mr. Price." Giving the covered food one last glance, his own stomach reminding him dinner had been small last night, he led Tucker away from the table and up the dimly lit stair well.
"But… but…" Tucker started.
Danny threw his head over his shoulder, a finger to his lips as he remembered the Shaffer's didn't want to get woken up until eight.
Tucker froze his mouth open for a moment before doing as he was asked, hunching his shoulders.
A smile pulled at Danny's face, pity for his friend, as he turned back to watch where he was going down the dark woken dog run of the house. Opening the front door, he was surprised to find a two horse drawn wagon and two men dressed in worn out clothes. A moment made him realize he wasn't sure what he expected, reminding himself not for the first time what year he was now in.
"Ye' the boys M'ta Price talkin' 'bout?" the older of the two men asked, taking his hat off to wipe with an old rag that had long since lost its color.
Danny wasn't sure what type of accent he had, but nodded his head nonetheless.
"Theres'ur order," the younger man said, nodding his head at the crate still in the wagon. "M'ta Price said 'u two'd git it out fur us."
"Of course he did," Tucker mumbled.
"Come on, Tuck," Danny said, easily getting up to the wagon with a hand on the wooden floor for balance.
"What on Earth is it?" Tucker asked, stepping up to the tailgate of the wagon to look up.
Danny looked the box over, guessing it to be the same size as a monitor and CPU put in the same box. The only writing on the box, other than the address to where it was to be delivered, was the warning that it was fragile. "We'll find out in a bit," Danny pointed out, giving it a test shove towards Tucker. Careful of the two men watching, he made a struggle of moving the seemingly heavy crate to the edge of the wagon. Using some ghostly strength, he made it look like he was getting Tucker's help in lowering it to the ground, thankful his friend knew to make it look reasonable. Danny dropped back off of the tailgate only to realize he knew how to get into the crate, but only had the ability to do so with ghost powers. Turning to the two men he asked, "Hey, you have a crowbar we could borrow?"
"Sorry mate, 'e've gotta git," the older man said, the two already getting to the bench of the wagon.
Danny watched the two get on their way, leaving the gravel driveway.
"Thanks," Tucker mumbled.
"Come on, I'll open it once we're inside," Danny said, rolling his eyes at the two driving away. He leaned down to pick up his side, waiting for Tucker to copy him, before they carried it into the house. They turned to their left to go through the open doorway to the library, carefully sitting the crate down on the rug by the center of the room. Danny gave a glance through the doorway and windows before taking hold of the top lid. He carefully made the wood intangible, trying to keep track of the nails. He pulled the lid off and dropped the power before carefully putting the piece of wood to the side, resting it against the box.
"Alright, I still don't know what I'm looking at," Tucker said, keeping his voice down as he dug through the packing straw.
Danny looked in to see Tucker pulling out a type of horn, noticing the bulk of the weight must be the thing he saw under it. He leaned over and felt through the straw to find the base of a wooden device, carefully pulling it up and out of the straw. A few pieces scattered as he tried to gently sit the device down on a coffee table next to them on the rug, noticing Thomas Edison's name on the plaque at the front with a type of crank handle on its right side.
"Oh what?" Tucker said, more to himself.
Danny turned and saw his friend digging through the straw, bent at the waist to get to the bottom.
Tucker popped his head back out of the crate and held up a paper cup with a lid in his hand. "You know what this is?"
Danny shook his head, still clueless, as his friend stood straight and stepped over to the wood and metal device Danny had just sat down.
Tucker attached the horn so that its smaller side was pointing towards the bar that made up the majority of the top of the machine. "It's an Edison player," Tucker said, opening the cup to pull out a blue cylinder. Careful of the face, he held it with his fingers inside the cylinder and pulled open a bar above the hand crank, sliding the cylinder on and latching it closed. Tucker moved the horn to the left side of the device and went to reach for the hand crank, pushing it in to wind it up.
"A what?"
"Another name for it is the Edison Phonograph," a voice said from the door to the hallway.
Tucker froze, his hand still on the crank, as Danny quickly turned around. Remembering his short info dump yesterday, he put his hands behind his back and tried not to look at the man dressed in his night robe.
"Daniel and Tucker, am I right?" Walter Shaffer asked.
"Yes sir," Danny offered, wondering how much trouble they were in. "We're sorry, we'll clean up and get out of your way."
"Hang on a moment," Mr. Shaffer said, walking over to look at his new appliance. "I'm curious about how much you know about this device."
Danny gave Tucker a side eyed glance, glad to see he had let go of the hand crank and was mirroring his own stance.
"Just that they play music," Tucker offered. "I've never seen one in person."
"But you know how it works?"
Tucker gave the man a nod, surprising Danny as their boss motioned for the teen to continue what he had been doing. Tucker gave Danny a worried glance before releasing his hands from behind himself and gave the machine a few rounds of the hand crank. He moved that hand to a small silver knob and turned it, getting the cylinder spinning. Keeping his right hand on that knob, his left picked up the base of the horn and gently rested it onto the blue cylinder, instantly greeting them with the static of empty recording before a male voice announced, "In a Village by the Sea, sung by Byron G. Harlan." The song started up, getting Tucker to take a step back from the machine.
Danny found himself amazed, not by the little box playing music, but by their boss' reaction. The man slowly nodded his head to the song with his eyes closed, a pleasant smile on his face as the words sang out clear from the little horn. The three listening in silence to the loud device that had no volume control as the short song ran out of cylinder to play on, prompting Tucker to reach forward and turn the small silver knob back to stop it.
"Did you know that song?" Walter asked, opening his eyes to look at them again. "You got the speed perfect."
"No sir," Tucker offered, moving the horn off of the cylinder before stepping back to stand beside Danny.
"No matter, the younger generation seems to pick up on these things," Walter shrugged off as he placed his hands in his robe's pockets. He pulled out a pipe and tin before saying, "I typically smoke my pipe in the gazebo, Ethel does hate the smell." He let out a laugh Danny took to mean he was supposed to be in agreement with the man. "Let me know when breakfast is ready."
"Yes sir," Danny said with a nod of his head. They watched the man leave the library before Danny flicked a hand at the loose pieces of straw and grabbed them in a ghostly green before commanding them to get back into the crate.
"Can you do that for my room back home?" Tucker asked, watching as Danny grabbed the lid and placed it in the wooden box before picking it up now that it was empty of the metal device.
"Great, another thing Mom will get after me to practice," Danny grumbled, giving his friend a smile to show he was just joking. Dropping the smile he added, "But really, she's got me flying around the house as Fenton, says I need to practice more that way."
"Really? Man, I have been too busy," Tucker said with a quiet laugh.
"Come on, let's go see if there's any breakfast left for us," Danny said, reposition the box to turn towards the doorway. He led the way out, Tucker closing the door behind them, only for Danny to quickly stop as two things caught his attention. His cold core forced its way up, showing his breath, as the girl he had seen yesterday came to a stop right in front of him.
"Put that down," the girl Danny vaguely remembered her name as Alberta ordered. Her brows were pulled in forced seriousness as the rest of her body trembled. "I know who you really are and I need your help."
"What?" Danny asked, surprised their cover would've been blown so soon. He let out a sigh as he sat the crate on the hardwood floor of the entry way as he realized he had gotten used to the cluelessness of the residences of Amity Park.
