Danny did not sleep well. Between his injuries and the weight of his current situation, he barely felt rested by the time his alarm clock went off.
Needless to say, his nerves were fried. At the very least, he'd managed overnight to compile a list of activities for them to do with Sam. However, how they would actually get the girl to partake in any of them remained a mystery. Sam had been standoffish since her transformation, mostly ignoring his presence and not even willing to entertain a conversation.
"How are we going to make her talk to and hang out with us though?" Tucker asked, entering the hallways astride Danny and fiddling with his PDA. "She's with Paulina in almost every period…"
"I'll get her alone somehow," Danny said, the gears in his brain whirring. "Should we…blackmail her?"
"With what?" Tucker's eyebrows raised as they alighted on Danny's locker and he started rummaging through it. "Couldn't she just counter that with your secret?"
He inwardly cursed as he realized Tucker was probably right. Desiree had implied the other day that she'd bewitched Sam to not want to (in order to make Danny suffer a lonely life without her), but that didn't necessarily mean that she couldn't still do it. Not if, say, she found herself in need of some material for a counter blackmail.
"In that case, we've got to appeal to her…" Danny soured, wondering if this is what it felt like when he had abandoned his friends for the in-crowd, without even a spell. "…newfound need for popularity somehow."
Tuck hummed thoughtfully. "I wonder if she's still competitive."
Danny shut his locker, having retrieved his textbooks. "What do you mean?"
She hadn't been competitive in areas that most girls were. Looks, for instance, dressing in the latest upscale fashions or gloating her grades, or vying for boys. Mostly she competed in video games or ghost hunting or P.E. and it had been fairly lighthearted.
"Like maybe she wouldn't wanna lose a bet?" Tucker suggested, glancing pointedly over at the A-listers that had filtered through the double doors, Dash's boisterous bragging announcing their presence. "Let's say… you overshadowed Paulina, or—" He paused, recalling the conversation he overheard and how Star questioned Sam's new leaf the most. "Actually, it would make more sense for Star to be the one to do it."
Danny arched an eyebrow in question.
"Yesterday at the mall, Star grilled her about, uh." He rubbed the back of his head. "Crushing on one of us."
Danny groaned, covering his eyes for a brief moment. "Why does everyone keep saying that?"
Tucker side-eyed the lockers. "The point is, what if Star made a bet with her? Like she questioned Sam's new personality or something and claimed that maybe her parents were forcing it?"
Danny thought about it, eyeing the glowed-up Sam as they passed with her A-listers in tow. "You know what? That might work."
"You know, I still feel like this is a prank or something." Star, currently overshadowed by Danny, shocked the whole table by broaching the topic that had been on everyone's mind. "I mean, you were a bona fide goth, weren't you? You weren't a poser, you lived and breathed and sweat like a goth geek."
Everyone at the table, which had been composed of exclusively A-listers on the cheerleading squad or football team, looked up and stared.
"I told you," Sam dismissed, undaunted by Star's skepticism. "I've snapped out of it. Like a princess under a spell," she added, whirling her fork whimsically through the air like a wand.
"Okay, but, how do we know for sure? I mean, c'mon… Does this make sense to you, Paulina? How does someone transition from geek to runner-up prom queen overnight?!" Danny pressed on, inwardly cheering when he earned a thoughtful look from Paulina, who sat adjacent to Danny-as-Star with her fork digging through bits of her salad.
"Why would she be pretending though?" The popular girl asked, clearly wavering in her resolve, to Danny's relief. Of everyone he had to convince, Paulina's vote was of utmost importance. Only she could issue demands that Sam would yield to, being mindful of her reputation and place in the hierarchy. That's how girl code works, right? Upon further reflection, he should've asked Jazz. Perhaps then he would have gleaned a useful tidbit from the psychobabble.
"A prank, maybe." Star-Danny shrugged nonchalantly. "Or espionage, maybe, trying to harvest our precious tea."
Paulina gasped, almost comically scandalized. "You'd better not!"
She started to protest when Kwan chimed in hesitantly, "I mean, it is kind of weird that you just suddenly changed overnight."
Sam scoffed daintily—she seemed to be hyper-conscious of her pitch just like her mother. "Hairpin turnarounds are normal for teenagers."
"I don't know if something hormonal is involved or what," Star-Danny placated, switching to good cop in a flash. "I like you, Sam. I do. You've been such a joy to have around but you can't blame me for fearing that one day you might fall into the clutches of Goth fashion again." She eyed Sam up and down before straightening. "Luckily you haven't done anything permanent yet."
"How do you know?" Sam asked, in the sweetest and most innocuous voice possible.
Star-Danny's eyes bugged out of his/her skull. Even while enchanted, her spitfire remained.
"Joking, of course," Sam clarified, "I have not permanently maimed myself. Aside from ear piercings." She leaned back in her chair, scrutinizing Star-Danny suspiciously. A bead of sweat rolled down her neck at the hard stare.
'For Sam,' he told himself. The real Sam. The one behind that cheeky quip earlier, the one who out-danced their high scores, the one whose random doodle (he shushed the little voice that taunted, 'about you; she's sketching in her notebook about you!') became a logo on his chest.
"So what will convince everyone then? How do I pledge my loyalty to pink?" Sam asked, jolting him to the present.
Paulina mulled it over, taking a bite of her salad. "Um, gosh. What could prove it?"
"Have her beat up some goths?" Dash suggested.
"Violence is not very ladylike." Sam smiled sheepishly; Dash's flexing biceps deflated. "My mother would be so embarrassed. I could never," she prattled on, "But oh, let me see…"
"What if we pull a Beyond Scared Straight?" Star-Danny flashed a radiant smile, gaze sweeping over the table. "Like she hangs out with the losers for a week, right? And they have to try to convert her back to her old Wednesday Addams act—"
At this comparison, Dash hooted and hollered. Kwan at least had the decency to try and suppress the snickers into his palm.
"—anyway, as I was saying, we subject her to the torture of her past mistakes (and there was so many mistakes, particularly with fashion). If she's still our beloved Samantha and not Ebony Ravenway or whoever when she returns, I would feel reassured then."
"Oh, c'mon." Sam groaned, burying her face in her hands. "I blocked him and Tucker both after all that spamming."
"Can't really blame 'em. Dash shrugged, lazily waving his drumstick around. "Losers can only take so many L's, yeah?"
Danny scowled. It registered on Star's face for a second too long.
"No chicken fights, Dash," Sam corrected with an ear-piercingly sharp pitch. "Your suggestion sounds more amenable, Star."
"Would this technically be considered a security breach if it turned out Sam was like, winning a bet or something?" Paulina wondered, reflexively crushing her milk carton as the realization hit her. "She'll totally spill all of our tea! Anyone would! It's too valuable!"
"Not our precious tea," Star-Danny cooed.
"It'll be like a Boston Tea Party," Paulina gasped, a hand flying to her mouth. "342 chests opened to sip the tea!"
If the real Sam were here, she'd be impressed that Paulina knew that little. Simply because, well, it's Paulina.
Then again, Danny wondered off-handedly if Sam had caught an insightful glimpse of another life, where Paulina's lackeys part ways long enough to carve out their own names. While Paulina appeared ditzy on the surface, she did have stellar grades. Although the homework had been completed by nerds, but still, Paulina passed most of her tests. Paulina aside, what about Dash, for example? Did he have problems that ran deeper, to a place where his fists couldn't reach? Or had Kwan simply been desperate to fit in like everyone else? What about the satellite he embodied, who couldn't make any fashion choice without Paulina's overarching opinion? What if they were all my complex than they let on? He almost sighed aloud in Star's body.
"We can't let that happen," Star-Danny declared, glancing at Paulina for affirmation. "We just can't, Paulie."
Her bestie nodded, lips curved in a smirk. "I say we ghost Sam for a week and see if she comes flying back."
Danny waited with bated breath.
"You're sentencing me to dork hell?" Sam sulked in her seat, arms folded in what looked very much like a pout. "The things I do for besties."
Success. He inwardly punched the air.
Alone in her private study, Ida wracked her brain, tired and old as it was, trying to come up with a lead.
She still refused to accept that her son and daughter-in-law hadn't somehow been behind Sam's metamorphosis, but said accusation alone left her with little to follow. How they could have transformed her, let alone in the course of a single day, continued to elude her.
Hypnosis? Drugs? Hypnotic drugs? Maybe she'd been watching too many late night crime dramas, but Ida figured anything was possible at this point, especially given the circumstances. It was no myth that those with power and money tended to stick their toes in shady or illegal activity, after all.
However, none of these options called out to her more than another: ghost magic.
It seemed like a no-brainer, given that their town was famous for being a hive for supernatural activity. The only flaw was that Ida knew her children well and she was fundamentally sure that they were the absolute last people to ever be interested in the supernatural. Aside from Sam's association with Fentons, the Mansons had never dabbled in ghost-hunting. Such hobbies would hurt their image. Was it possible they had made an exception for this one case? Had Sam gone so far with her sabotage that it warranted a heavy sacrifice on the Mansons' part, forcing them to dip their toes into a field they'd for so long considered beneath them?
Still, even then, how would they acquire any knowledge of ghost magic?
Had they consulted the Fentons privately? Were the Fentons unconscious accessories to this crime, perhaps, in the sense they informed Pamela and Jeremy on how to pull this off?
No, she shook the thought out of her head. They hated the Fentons. And even if they didn't, Ida knew enough about the Fentons to know that they would never even consider doing something so evil. After all, they were ghost hunters, dedicated to keeping their home town safe (as questionable and effective as their methods often were).
But if not them, then who could have provided for Pam and Jeremy? And how could the old woman possibly deep-dive into this case without alerting the Mansons, or exposing their family dysfunction to the world in such a way that would surely embarrass Sam and all but devastate her image-conscious parents? Who would be a credible source but the Fentons? She couldn't very well consult an online database—unless she illegally that of the Guys in White's—or peruse a library for thorough documentation of every locally sighted ghost and all of its idiosyncrasies. Obviously, none of her children's friends or contacts had any sort of involvement with the supernatural. Far be it for those snooty snobs to engage in something so unsophisticated.
But wait…her mind flashed back to the ruined party. Hadn't there been a journalist present? One (tragically) named Harriet Chin?
Danny didn't know what to expect when Sam showed up. Would she remain begrudgingly polite throughout the whole ordeal, or would she throw a tantrum outright? That didn't seem like new Sam's style. She was more dismissive and airy, disinclined to dirty her hands when she could simply delegate pawns.
"This might turn out to be the only instance where a girl did not stand me up for a set date, so to speak," Tucker commented offhandedly, from the passenger's seat where he had kicked up his boots on the dashboard.
"Well," Danny muttered with a tang of bitterness. He leaned back into the passenger's seat, gazing out into the expansive parking lot. Autopilot Jack took up the driver's seat, blessedly silent for the moment. "She's no longer going to be repelled by your meat odor."
"Hey now, 'odor' carries negative connotations! Don't you mean cologne?"
"Oh so you were the cheap hotdog smell in the store earlier?" A familiar voice piped up, with far more cheer than deadpan. Tucker nearly ejected himself out of his seat—literally, he almost pressed the big red button. Danny jolted as well, half-expecting jocks to try and jump him at Sam or Paulina's behest. However, all he saw was the giggling form of their former friend outside his window.
True to character, she wore a fuschia sundress that pooled around her knees in flouncy layers, its sleeves pointy and retro like her parents' style. She topped it off with expensive jewelry and T-strap heels that were far too precarious, in his opinion, for the unknown terrain of the Demon House, let alone this crumbly parking lot riddled with puddles. Old Sam would've scoffed at heels and agreed with him, commenting on the misogynistic origins of that fashion–and yet, despite all of that, Danny had to admit, she looked pretty. Not that Sam had never been pretty before.
Wait, was Sam pretty to him? As in, was that merely a clinical observation or was it actually very personal?
"Uh, no," Tucker answered in an ironically girlish pitch.
She arched an eyebrow at Tucker. "Can't know for sure unless I see those knobby knees."
Tucker blinked and then his nostrils flared. "Knobby?! That's rich coming from you, chicken legs!"
"I mean…" She tapped her bottom lip, ostensibly eyeing a cloud as she spoke to them. Danny noted a difference already: New Sam (he'd gone and capitalized it in his mind now) rarely paid attention to anyone she did not consider important, even going so far as to pointedly ignore their gazes, offering nothing beyond the basic niceties. "If your knees are freshly shaven, that's a dead giveaway."
Tucker's eyes widened in realization and skittered to Danny.
"Tuck never shows his knees," Danny pointed out. "Anyway, hop in. Glad you showed up… and it looks like not that much has changed if you're still bickering with Tucker on a topic loosely related to meat."
A smirk curled at the corner of her preppy pink lips. Danny's heart fluttered; his stomach somersaulted; his mind performed Olympic-level gymnastics on the potential outcome of this grave endeavor; and then he felt like he'd been punched in the gut several times, as if he were freshly contused by Desiree again; only he might actually prefer Desiree's walloping to this, an ambiguous tease of the soul that once controlled her body.
Sam reared opened the door, climbing into the backseat and slamming it with her heel. "Ugh. I can't believe you chose to bring your cringe Fenton minivan."
"Don't you at least appreciate the nostalgia?" Tucker tried.
"Not particularly!"
"Soooo you meannn…" Danny exchanged a glance with Tucker, who smirked in unison. "…you won't be delighted to hear us belt out Down With the Sickness at our highest, slobberiest volume?"
"No." Sam startled, sitting up ramrod straight in her seat. "You wouldn't."
Without taking his eyes off her, Danny reached for the scanner on the dashboard.
"Nonononono…." she mumbled, sounding eerily like a Disney damsel in her panic. She pressed the unlock button for the seatbelt but it didn't budge. "You locked it!" she exclaimed when she had mashed the button enough for her to realize.
"Safety first," Danny said, grinning widely as he changed the track. Guitar riffs and banging drums resounded off the armored walls of the vehicle.
"NO! YOU CAN'T EVEN CALL THIS SINGING!" Sam clapped her hands over her ears.
Tucker, ever the contrarian, mimicked the belch-like vocal effect at the beginning of the song.
"Let me out of this seat, Fentoilet!" she screeched above the racket of both boys launching into roaring, offbeat vocals.
"No!" they both denied her at once, not even breaking sync.
Sam screamed; Danny and Tucker screamed back with some vague semblance of rhythm.
'Technically,' Danny thought, cracking a smile as he scream-sang, 'we just had an infinitely better musical montage.'
"So where are we going?" Sam asked, later when the screaming had dwindled to humming and foot-tapping.
Danny brightened on cue. "So glad you asked." With Sam's freedom on the line, Danny laid out his plans meticulously beforehand. "First, we're going to a haunted house."
"That's not scary when you've been desensitized to ghost hunting," Sam pointed out.
Tucker shrugged. "You kept going to them for aesthetic purposes, didn't you?"
She huffed, though still delicately, lacking any of the rough, animalistic gravel it had before. More squeaky than feral.
"And besides, you said it gives back to the local goth economy," Danny added cheerily, pulling a groan from Sam. "Something something, nobless oblige, 'cause that's how you were." He softened for a moment, peering at her through the mirror and scrutinizing her countenance for any sign of change. "Darkness on the outside and light on the inside."
Sam blinked, once, hard. "Save it for gothic slam poetry, will ya?"
Danny allowed but a tiny smile; the snark felt familiar, at least, though harrowing on the receiving end. He much preferred it when she was using it to defend him.
"Tonight, after the house, we're going on a haunted hayride," Danny explained, listing each event off his fingers, "Wednesday, that new VR place. Thursday, we've got a date with that escape room with the slasher film theme. Friday, we'll be having a movie night…"
Sam only seemed to be partially listening, directing her gaze out the window, arms folded across the firmly locked seatbelt.
"You seem to be applying an 'exposure therapy' sort of method to this," she remarked when he finished.
"Hm?" Tucker turned back in his chest to look over at his shoulder. "That was your bet, wasn't it? We're just helping an old friend out."
"Yeah, about that," Sam replied, simultaneously sweet and acidic like a gimmicky candy flavor, "I found it awfully strange how Star went around… commanding people all of a sudden."
The boys side-eyed each other but withheld comment.
Sam continued, "In fact, it's usually Paulina devising the plans and ordering everyone around, if not Dash. A bit odd, really. So random… and so specific."
"Guess Star had the opposite of a blonde moment for once," Tucker dismissed, feigning nonchalance.
Danny chuckled nervously, playing along. "Yeah, who woulda thunk!"
"Uh-huh. Well, whoever needs convincing," Sam said, dragging out the last syllable, "I'm going to subject myself to this for one business week and nothing more."
"…Don't you only care about convincing your new friends?" Tucker ventured.
"Oh no, that's not how PR cleanup works," Sam tsk'ed, examining her nails for show. "You have to muzzle all of the dissidents that you can, and you know what, Danny in Star's body?" She punctuated this with a sharp look in his direction, garnering a wince. "Thank you for the excellent idea. I had been wondering how long it would take everyone to get used to the new me but you're accelerating things with this bet."
She grinned as she watched both boys freeze up in shock.
"…So you walked right into our trap?" Tucker cut in after an extended silence.
"Trap? Nah, you handed me a political opportunity." She smirked, looking and sounding utterly satisfied with herself. "Thanks, dweeb."
Being far more concerned with her previous statements, Danny let the epithet roll off him. "So you're using us." He leaned back in his chair to fix his gaze on the window, allowing autopilot Jack to take the wheel.
"Naturally. You should be grateful I'm even rewarding you with my time after all those peasant lunches and freaky tourist spots I paid for," Sam said, admiring her rings while she made a point—no trace of subtlety for the public eye anymore, Danny guessed—of avoiding his eyes. As if he were ecto-gunk stuck in the ridges of her combat boots.
Of course it hurt, but he didn't let that show. Danny could only join her in averting their gaze from the other, while his mind raced.
Again, back to Tuck's possession. Tucker Phantom had more or less been a clone of Tuck, only driven by feelings of jealousy and rage towards Danny. This new version of Sam appeared to operate in a similar, though still different, fashion. Like Phantom, she still had all her pre-transformation memories. However, her personality was a complete 180 of old Sam, converted to fit the standards desired by her parents.
What troubled Danny was that, as she'd just demonstrated, this new Sam still did possess qualities of the original's personality: her scheming, conniving, and manipulative side. Traits that she'd picked up over the years of ducking and dodging her parents' corrections and battling it out with their school's pro-dissection, pro-meat curriculum. Traits that had always been balanced out by her caring and compassion. But now…
Now she was using these skills against them. Worse, she'd already figured out their plan, meaning that she'd most likely put extra effort into keeping her guard up against their attempts to win her back. Thus, making their mission even harder.
He also wondered why Desiree's wish had preserved them. Surely that's not how the Mansons pictured their perfect daughter? Surely, they'd see such behavior as uncivilized for a proper lady? Then again, maybe he shouldn't be surprised. This wish itself had already proven the lengths they were willing to go to get their way. Maybe they really were worse than he'd ever assumed.
No wonder they got along so well with Vlad.
"Delightful road trip so far." Tucker propped his cheek on his elbow, grunting noncommittally. "I mean, really."
"Just remember, I'm here all week!" she chirped. "And I'm going to be utterly insufferable."
Danny groaned. Yep, this definitely was going to be harder.
After quickly looking her up online, Ida contacted her by phone, inquiring about the events at Masters' mansion. Could something have infected Sam there? Had she mishandled this ectoplasm that she somehow sourced for a prank?
"Well, I don't know about Sam, but this wouldn't be the first time I've heard of someone being overtaken by a ghost," Harriet rambled, a professional gossip-monger indeed. "Back when I was a successful journalist, there was that fiasco at Vlad's reunion," her tone soured, "with Jack Fenton."
Ida asked for details and Chin readily relayed the events, describing Jack's sudden change in character—like what happened to Sam?—rendering him belligerent. Naturally Harriet fled the scene, only to be caught and man-handled by the possessed Jack.
"Do you know what ghost possessed him?"
"Haven't a clue, but there were local legends about a Dairy King." She sniffed, miffed by the memory. "I nearly lost my job for publishing an article about the ambush from ghosts. Luckily the public found out soon enough and my so-called crazy became mainstream."
"Harriet," Ida intoned gravely, partially to perk her gossipy ears. "Would you happen to have a record of ghost sightings in this area? If so, could we schedule a date to discuss?"
"Of course!" This seemed to perk the lady up.
Ida glanced out her window, where the sun had almost dipped below the horizon. "Meet me on Wednesday," she said, thrilled to be sneaking out for the first time in decades. "I'd like to discuss what ghost might be capable of turning my granddaughter."
"Absolutely, Ms. Manson," Chin replied, "I'd be delighted to work with you."
The gang hit the Demon House. Sam stepped onto the gravel, took one look at it and scoffed. "This only ever resulted in me laughing in the actors' faces."
"Still fun," Tucker tried, only to sulk when she brushed past him coldly. "…with the right company." He side-eyed Danny with the utmost doubt shining; Danny faltered in his step but caught up to Sam eventually, clinging to the last spring in his step.
'You got her here. That's one success.'
No, it wasn't. Sam had pulled an Uno reverse and was just playing along. It didn't count.
"I hear there's new animatronics," was Danny's valiant attempt at striking up conversation with her, the same way he'd always done, "that you can actually shoot at and score a prize."
"Yeah, I'll try to be excited about it while I'm signing twenty pages' worth of waivers to prevent me from suing anyone for hurting me with fake ghosts," she drawled, folding her hands behind her back and springing ahead to the line. Danny and Tucker shouldered through a bustle of families and teen cliques, trying to keep up with her. Did she intend to get lost with no ride home or something?
True to form, Sam proved to be a menace even while she waited in line. To avoid talking to either of them, Sam began chattering away at a party of teenagers ahead of them. She fluttered her eyelashes at one guy, Kyle or something, with a dirty blond mop of hair and a varsity jacket for Casper High's rivals. Danny and Tucker had been almost completely disregarded throughout the exchange, Sam having completely bowled over their introductions and charming the teens with flashy grins.
Danny made an effort to chime in but got bulldozed over by Sam's voice sharpening in pitch, like a knife cutting through the air and, for a breathless moment, severing Danny's tie to the earth.
Nonetheless he'd soldiered on. He'd taken harder blows than this, hadn't he?
Except not really. His ghost had been hurt countless times but rarely his soul.
"Give this a chance," he murmured, maybe a little too close to her ear, if only to not be overheard by the numerous other teens cramming the queue in this dingy, drawn-up Colonial.
She startled at their closeness, carroty hair lashing into his face when she turned her head. "Personal space," she hissed, only to close in on Kyle with considerably less berth than she'd afforded him or Tucker, grinning cheekily.
"Zoinks," Tucker muttered, looking off to the side.
"Jinkies," Danny conceded.
She snorted, passing a sneaky comment off to Kyle that made him laugh. Danny's scowl deepened. He stared daggers into Kyle's back that the poor unsuspecting man admittedly did not deserve, until finally their respective groups separated at the entrance. Sam waved an enthusiastic goodbye to Kyle, making a show of it.
"What was the point of that?" Danny sniped when the trio were ostensibly alone in the cobweb-laced corridors.
"Just making friendly chit-chat," she replied in a singsong voice, narrowly sidestepping a target painted on the floor, partially obscured in hay. Sam paused as if waiting for them to catch up, only for her leg to deftly sweep out at Tucker's ankle. With a one-footed hop forward, Tucker triggered a cannon launch of slime—not real ectoplasm, of course, due to legalities. A panel in the wall lifted, admitting the launcher that soaked Tucker in mucus-green, store-bought jelly. Sam chortled; Danny followed shortly after.
"I dare you to walk up to a girl looking like that and say, 'If I were booger, would you pick me?'" Sam doubled over in laughter and Danny—just couldn't resist laughing with her, because at least they were falling into the normal routine of bantering-to-bickering. Tucker's scowl remained stubbornly intact for about ten seconds before he caved too.
"Get this offa me," he half-groaned, half-laughed. Danny stepped forward, feigning like he had brushed off Tucker's hat but, through sleight-of-hand, rendered him intangible long enough for the monster slime to drip through the foundational cracks.
"So, as you can see," Danny said, trailing ahead to whatever room had been annexed next, breaking through cotton-woven webs and shaking off a plastic tarantula, "it's still fun. Remember, even Dash had a haunted house once?"
"Yeah, and you were rescued by your Knight, weren't you?" Sam rolled her eyes, charging ahead and showing her frilly backside once again.
Danny sighed, turned left into a form and ran straight into one of the actors dressed up as a haggard clown. Out of sheer startle, Danny screamed, and Sam did not let it go that he had been the first to 'scream like a princess' in the haunted tours. She whipped her phone out to shoot Paulina a text about it, not even trying to hide her taunts.
On the bright side, however, Sam's reckless texting and walking with heels earned her a jump-scare of her own in mere seconds. Tucker's infectious screams echoed off all of theirs—one of the actresses costumed as a zombified nurse had taken notice of him. Sam, like a queen bee, rushed a beeline through the Demon House to the end. Needless to say, despite the numerous attempts to salvage it, the Demon House ultimately proved a failure.
'Maybe a change of scenery will help,' Danny thought as they drove to their next activity.
The sun was setting as the trio boarded a horse-drawn wagon for a haunted hayride throughout the city.
"This is so itchy and uncomfortable!" Sam griped, sweeping the layers of her skirt to clear it of hay. "You should've at least informed me what would be practical to wear!"
"Uh, well," Danny huffed, thoroughly annoyed by her complaints since their arrival. "You seem to prefer impractical."
It took everything in him not to rebuke this version of Sam. 'You're so bitchy and uncomfortable,' he could've said, but to Sam's face? Altered though it may be, her features brought nostalgia. How could he ever say anything mean-spirited to her-even though it's not really her? Despite how she may not remember, he would.
"Pardon me for not wearing a dorky jumpsuit," she snorted. Firmly planted on the bench, she crossed one leg over the other, her foot bouncing impatiently. "You know, Dash would look soooo much better in that tight spandex, right?"
"Uh, no," Tucker said, squeezing through a bustle of tourists to regroup on the bench, naturally choosing a seat next to Danny. "And please don't bring that up again."
She turned her nose up in the air. "Dash actually has a superhero figure, Tucker, unlike Danny: broad shoulders, barreled chest."
"Please stop describing it," Tucker replied, panic rising into his voice. "Please?"
But Danny had his comeback at the ready, leaning in close to Sam until their shoulders almost touched. "Yeah, but he skips leg day."
Tucker threw his head back and laughed. Meanwhile Sam uttered a dramatic sound of disgust.
"Alright, y'all." The trio of teens looked up when a chain-smoker's voice broke out amongst the din, tracing it to the speaker. A burly woman with overalls over her gingham shirt stood at the forefront of the hayrack, hands pressed on her hips. "Who's ready for-" she started to say, only for Sam's soprano to suddenly overpower.
"Leaving?" She finished sweetly.
Their driver only chuckled. "You sure you can outrun a zombie in those heels, miss…?"
"Samantha," she replied, flouncing her hair for dramatic flair. "Why should I run when I am armed with something pointy?"
Everyone on the hayride gawked, probably wondering why this girl was disrupting the preamble.
"Sam," Danny whispered harshly, impelled by self-consciousness to implore her, however useless it might be. "Stop."
She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms and directing her gaze away. Again like he was nothing, not even sneaking glances at him like she used to.
Those were friendly glances, though, he told himself. Checking on your welfare.
"Nothing wrong with a little heckling," Sam replied, though she relented and scooted slightly away from him. Apparently he'd leaned in too close again.
With Sam being silenced, the tour guide pressed on, expanding on the lore of Amity Park, the most haunted city in the country–and, of course, getting many things wrong, especially about Danny.
New Sam would've corrected her and defended him, but this rendition only snickered and smirked.
"I was saved by him once," she cut in unexpectedly. "Seems cute until you see him up close."
Danny shut his eyes, fingers gripping the edge of the bench and eliciting a creak.
"Why?" someone asked from the crowd, a blonde girl who'd probably idolized him like Paulina and all the others.
"Enlarged pores and he's got a wart." Her nose wrinkled in contempt. "Also smells like death."
"Ew!" the girl exclaimed.
"You sure that's true?" Tucker challenged. "I could've sworn the photos…"
"Oh, they don't do him justice," Sam said, studying her manicure with obvious disinterest.
"Whatever the rumors are," the tour guide intervened, eyeing the trio with growing suspicion and confusion, "Why don't we explore some of these haunted alleys, folks?"
After that, the hayrack ride proved mostly uneventful. Sam rolled her eyes at the actors' antics, looking utterly unimpressed with their costumes and theater makeup. Were it not for her reputation, Sam might've been heckling a heck of a lot more too, he was sure.
The Wednesday VR experience at the mall also proved to be underwhelming, inspiring only yawns or snickers from Sam. Tucker screeched at a few jump-scares, particularly the ones coming from hyper-realistic, ghoulish medical practitioners.
"Dang," Tucker breathed when at last the simulation ended, thoroughly tuckered out on exploring any more abandoned hospitals. "Those graphics were too detailed."
Danny doffed his headset on cue, looking over at Sam immediately. "So—" he began, but then cut himself short when he realized that Sam had fallen asleep in her chair.
"At least she's quiet?"
After jolting her awake, the boys proceeded to take her to their favorite clothing store in the mall, where Danny managed to persuade her to try on gothic ensembles. Whisking out of the dress room, she'd model with a deadpan, no trace of a smile.
"I look like death incarnate," she remarked, appraising herself in the mirror. "Where will I wear this? A funeral?" she scoffed, lifting the hem indicatively. "Will it be my funeral?"
"I don't see why you can't wear a dress like that to a party," Tucker said, attracting Sam's ire immediately.
"Are you kidding me?! What Manson would go out like this?" Tracking Tucker's gaze to a ruffled blood-red skirt. "What, are you going to wear that for your next spy mission?"
Tucker's cheeks darkened. "Uh, no, I just thought it looked nice and you should try it on."
She sighed, tapering into a growl as she snatched up the skirt in question and vanished behind the curtain.
Ida met with Harriet at a restaurant on the outskirts of town, traveling quite a ways to ensure that she would not be trailed or spotted. Arriving at the unassuming diner, Harriet spotted her and sat in the leather-cushioned booth across from her, dressed sharply to a point in her sleek suit jacket and complimentary trousers.
"Lovely to meet you," she greeted kindly. "You're a pioneer for paranormal journalism, it seems. I've been poring over your articles."
"You flatter me." She placed a hand over heart with a melodramatic flair. "Yes. I originally dismissed the Fentons as whackos, especially Jack." She frowned ever so slightly, a shifting of her lower lip to the side. "Until a ghost possessed him, that is, and he started attacking everyone within the vicinity."
"And the only suspect for that was the Dairy King legend?" Ida asked, intrigued.
"I wondered about that. Legends painted him as a menacing poltergeist, but… Why would he remain dormant until then?"
Ida contemplated for several long seconds. "Maybe a trigger. Something that threatened his obsession?"
"I didn't notice anything particularly novel," Harriet admitted, frown deepening with a huff, "I thought I was on the verge of a breakthrough with the story, but all it did was get me kicked from the Milwaukee Journal and left my credibility in the toilet. Had it not been for-" She paused, seeing the rather disinterested look of her client. "I'm sorry, rambling again." She cleared her throat. "Anyway, I attended that gala celebrating your family's merge with Vlad Co and someone dumped ectoplasm all over everyone." Here, she waved indicatively to her ensemble. "Luckily I wore green. Complete deja vu."
Ida chuckled. "You couldn't trace the culprit for that either?" She repressed the glowing pride at Sam's stealth lest it shine on her face.
Harriet shook her head. "No. Vlad claims not to know either except he suspects Fenton involvement. Your granddaughter… associates with them, yes?"
"Not anymore," Ida muttered, a touch of bitterness on the boys' behalf, especially that smitten Danny. "That poor besotted boy. He's been visiting for some kind of… bet? She's outright nasty to him and my son and daughter-in-law are delighting in it."
"Odd," Harriet remarked, stroking her not-so-hairy chin, despite her namesake. "That's a calculating demeanor for a ghost. Why overshadow her for that long? Does it want to permanently live as an heiress?"
"My hunch," Ida explained gravely, "is that my son and daughter-in-law may have anticipated this transformation, you see, based on their lack of shock."
Harriet's eyes widened, followed up with a self-satisfied smile. "You have a lead for me?"
"No," Ida stated firmly. "Do not interfere with my family or I guarantee we will make you regret it. Anything you publish on this scandal will not be pertaining to us. However—" She un-pocketed a check from her wool coat. "—I can employ you as a PI."
Harriet took the check proffered to her, glazing over the zeroes. "All for this?"
"Something terrible has happened to my granddaughter. Of course I'm willing to pay you handsomely."
Harriet slipped the check into her purse, a delighted smirk curling her lip. "You won't regret it."
"So where do we start?" Ida asked, somewhat impatiently. Her chest ached the more she turned the situation in her head.
"Well, did this all happen the night she went to that party? Maybe the Dairy King took a shining to her."
"No. Sam was fully herself when she went to sleep that night."
Harriet tapped her lip with a manicured nail. "Hmm. It's possible she merely picked up a stray, I suppose, but the timing is still awfully close. I say we investigate the mansion. Who knows? It could be swarming with ghosts, given its history."
"Has there been any more incidents with the mansion?" Ida frowned contemplatively, pulling wrinkles in her forehead. "Sam claimed she never pulled the prank but… if not her then who?"
Not to mention, the senior thought to herself, how would Pamela and Jeremy have gotten their hands dirty? Had someone instructed them? Certainly not the Fentons or Guys in White.
"I looked through the attendees list," Harriet said, folding her arms and leaning back into the velvety cushioning. "Sam's the only one who loosely associates with ghosts. Vlad washed his hands of ectoplasm ages ago."
Ida tilted her head curiously. "Why?"
"Oh, you haven't heard? He lost interest after Jack's first portal accident hospitalized him for years." She snorted derisively.
"Really now?" Shock colored the old woman's tone. "And he forgave him?"
Harriet waved a dismissive hand. "Apparently."
"Hmm. I didn't know Vlad dabbled in ghosts at all."
"Sam never mentioned it?"
Ida shook her head. "Mostly she would say that she didn't trust him and she imparted that to her parents with…" She trailed off for but a moment, a sharp click resounding in her mind. "…a certain level of desperation I hadn't seen in her before."
Harriet arched an eyebrow, leaning over the table slightly. "What does she not trust about our recently elected mayor of all people?"
"She wouldn't say, which is… even stranger." Her mandible screwed slightly to the side, laugh lines appearing.
Conversely, Harriet's features lit up. "I sense a scathing article on the horizon."
"Succeeding a thorough investigation, I hope."
"Oh yes." Harriet nodded, a smirk arising anew. "According to my sources, Vlad will be back in town this weekend. I can schedule something…provided you're willing to play dress-up."