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The Most Haunted Story in History	By : rinflowers1986 Category: +1 through F > Danny Phantom > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 2798 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
- 5
I feel as though some of this was rushed, and I don’t know why. Maybe because of how I ended it, it feels like the beginning of an ending to a story. I guess it should be, it’s the end of Danny’s long story. But it also could be that I had to butcher a pagan ritual to make it seem like ignorant teens were doing it. Though it was fun to mess with, I don’t like making fun of religions, especially ones that are so often the brunt of jokes.
I just don’t really like how this chapter came out.
Anyway I tried to keep it in the simplistic style so many people like, even thou I’m in a more complex mindset. Working on Rigor really has me thinking and writing with intense description. I found myself mentally describing to myself the path I take home from school. I caught myself when I realized it, but it was spooky, like writing out my own biography.
*sigh* I have an obsessive nature…
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The nights were always beautiful here, beautiful and peaceful. Cool October with gentle winds stirring the brightly colored trees with their leaves of red and orange and browns and the rare green that somehow managed to retain the deep color even as it shriveled and dried, barely managing to hold on to the limbs throughout the autumn season. The moon would be full soon, a few days, and its large face sent waves of shimmering silver over everything, making it so easy to pick out even the most shadowed corner.
Of course, being dead and intimately aware of all your surroundings helped a bit.
Danny sat still on the window seat, ethereal face pressed against the boundaries of the house; he imagined he could feel the cool glass of the window but knew that whatever physical awareness’s he had possessed while living were now nothing but faded memories and scraps of long lost senses.
He only wished his ability to perceive sound was listed amongst them, because it would be very calming if someone wasn’t snoring like a freight train in the bed right next to where he was sitting.
Dash mumbled something and rolled over, cocooning himself in the blankets. Danny looked on in disgust, sure that at any moment he would begin moaning and groaning in the throes of a wet dream. He really would rather not be in the room when that happened, or anywhere near the room, or the house, of the freaking county.
Feeling desperately drained he went back up into the attic, hoping to find some semblance of peace and rest amongst his old memories. In the two hundred years he’d been dead, he had never known peace. What made him think a few hours staring out the window would change things? There was no peace for him.
It was the way things had to be, until everything was solved.
*~*~*
“A party?” Dash asked around a mouthful of cheep liquor store cereal. Willies was the only store less than an hours drive from his home, a measly gas station off the highway with iron bars across the windows and rusty pumps. They sold milk and cereal and had a few plastic kids bowls anyway so it was tolerable to some degree that they had to get their breakfast there.
“Yes, Halloween is in a few days and since we missed the town fair I thought, what better way to get to know the locals then to have a party?”
“Mom, we don’t even have food in the house, how are we going to entertain a town?”
“Oh I’ll go shopping today, and your father is taking care of the movers and other stuff.” She smiled sweetly, and you can go on exploring like you were yesterday, you know the yard is real big, and there is even an old well I’m told.” Dash rolled his eyes.
“So before we even get settled in we’re going to have god knows how many people come over and poke around our house and maybe even get hurt because we don’t know what the hell is where and what needs to be repaired.”
“Dash, really don’t be so glum about it. It’ll be fun. Some of the kids from the high school you’ll be going to will be there.” Dash banged his head against the table and his bother hit him in the back of the head with a newspaper. “You’ll be starting this Monday, why can’t you make a few friends now before you get to class?”
“Or a few enemies.” Dash mumbled and hurriedly finished off the milk in his bowl. Wiping his mouth on his arm he dumped the dishes in the sink and headed back up to the second floor. Today he would find the entrance to the attic, he was sure of it.
*~*~*
“A freaking party.” He mumbled as he entered the room, startling Danny who was enjoying the quiet on the windowsill. Danny barely managed to get completely out of the way before Dash slumped down on the window seat. “She’s having a freaking party, and I’m going to have to be nice and ‘make friends’ to whatever hillbilly my-date-is-my-cousin teenagers will be there.”
“Hey, that’s a bit offensive you know, I’ve never known anyone to ever date their cousin.” Danny stated, knowing Dash couldn’t hear him. “What do you mean a party? She can’t have a party, there will be people!”
“She’ll probably be out buying snack and buffet-table foods and campy Halloween decorations and the whole house will look like a child’s theme park.” Dash grit his teeth.
“And they’ll probably be touching all over everything. Some stupid little twelve-year-old gets it in his head to carve his name in the wooden support beam on the porch and ruin all the beautiful carvings and then there are all the people walking around in dirty muddy shoes on the carpet and the greasy fingers from the food touching the drapes and the furniture and just having to look everywhere and see everything.”
Dash made a face. “I’m going to tell mom to rope off the second floor. They’re not getting into the rooms, or stumble into the attic when I haven’t found it yet and seen what’s up there and what may be stolen.”
“Hey, you aren’t ever getting up in my attic. What do you mean rope off the second floor? Why not rope off the whole house? Have the party outside, that’s what everyone does. Nice harvest festival, like the town has. Schmooze with them in the dormant garden, stay out of the house.”
Dash picked up the file of papers he had looked through yesterday. The letter was sitting on his bed, the folder lay open in his lap and he was leafing through the pages, they were all just a bunch of copies of newspapers, with a bored expression, not really looking at them.
“I mean, is it so much to ask for maybe a month before we start the parties and hoop-de-la? She knows how much I hate her making me entertain. Why not rub shoulders at someone else’s party? Why host your own?” Dash let his head lull back and hit the glass.
“I take it your mother does this often.” Danny said in agitation. “My sympathies, but really, can we sabotage this in any way at all.”
“I so just want to mess everything up.”
“So why don’t you?”
“But then mom will cry and say she’s a failure and then we’ll have to deal with her moping about until she gets back on her pedestal.”
“Oh. Well, that’s a good reason not to. Agitated mothers are frighteningly persuasive.”
Dash sat up and shook himself, adjusting his position on the cushion he turned his attention back to the folder, flipping back to the first page. “I’ve got to stop talking to myself.” He muttered, staring at the faded newspaper.
“Hey.”
*~*~*
“Fenton.” Dash traced the name with his finger. What a strange name, but then weren’t all names back then strange. Daniel, Jasmine, Madeline, they were, he supposed, traditional names and commonly used these days, but they all sounded so old, so foreign when coupled with the ink sketch of them.
“Jack Fenton and family the witches of Amity, boy were people nuts back then.”
“Dash?” He closed the folder and sent it under the bed with a well aimed toss. “Dash sweetie, hey I finished the decorations.” He had managed to get up and close the drapes just as she came in, stretching and pretending to have been asleep, he hadn’t made his bed yet so it looked convincing.
“You did?” Dash didn’t even think she’d left for the store yet. “What time is it?”
“Sweetheart, did you sleep all morning?”
“Uh, maybe, it all depends on what time it is.” Dash flashed a grin and his mom scoffed.
“Its one in the afternoon, you did sleep all morning didn’t you?” She had her hands on her hips.
“That would be a yes.”
“Dash you have school starting in five days you can’t throw off your sleeping pattern now.”
“I know.” He sat down on the bed and picked at the blanket. “I was just a little tired after the trip and I didn’t sleep well last night.” He offered.
“Well, come on down, see the decorations. Just think, Saturday night is Halloween and you can meet some friends.” She touched his hair, a gentle affectionate little gesture moms and good babysitters showed kids, then she flounced out of the room.
“Yeah, just great, new friends,” not that he had any old friends to replace, everyone at his old school thought he was stuck up and idiotic because his parents were successful and he was, well an idiot.
Dash grimaced. No, he just wasn’t a school or learning type of person. He could be smart, if he wanted, he just didn’t want to.
Dash finally got up from the bed and walked down the hall to see what his mom had done to ruin the house.
*~*~*
“Well what do you think?” She asked with a big smile on her face. Dash, his father, and the movers stood motionless in the foyer, looking from left to right, gaping. “Doesn’t it look great?”
“It looks…swell dear.” His father said pleasantly.
“Very good Mrs. Baxter,” one of the movers scratched the back of his neck.
His parents turned to him expectantly. He took in a deep breath, looked around one last time, searching, looking for anything worth noting pleasantly on. There wasn’t a single thing. “It looks like you got to the store last minute and bought everything nobody else wanted.” Dash said flatly, walking around and critiquing everything he saw. “Is that supposed to be a ghost or a snot rag? My god are those skeletons, of what gelatin? Demons? No wait, boogers! They should be over there with the hankies, er ghosts. Hey look its grandma!”
“Dashiel Baxter!” his mother looked ready to throw something at him; the movers were trying to keep from laughing.
“Hey if anything it’s really funny, maybe it can be passed as a comedy? A parody of the horrors of Halloween? Yeah that works.”
“If you’re trying to get me to cancel this party too bad.” She glared at him.
“Why not? Why can’t we wait another week? Another month? Hey how about until I graduate huh? I’m so sick of parties!” he swung his fist at one of the stuffed demons and it toppled over with a squeak.
“Look, I know you don’t like being around all these people, but there are kids your own age here too you know,” She fixed the demon, standing him back up and positioning him near the others. “You can at least try to make friends.”
“Mom I don’t like kids my age, and kids my age don’t like me.” He folded his arms, well aware that the movers and his father were heading back outside, probably to sit on the truck and have a few drinks before finishing up.
“You just never give them a chance.”
“No, they never give me a chance! They hear we’ve got money, then they see my grades, then they see my cloths and my hair and all the wonderful things about me that make me so typically popular and they reject me for my blatant lack of individuality.”
“Well maybe if you didn’t try to-“
“Mom I like the way I look. So what if it’s a knock off of every quarterback in the seventies? I like it, and I hate that everyone judges me on that. Why can’t simply dressing how I like make me an individual? Why do I have to try my damndest to stand out in a sea of punk Goth, skaters, gangsters, sluts, and retro fifties housewife wannabes?” Dash stood a moment, waiting for a response. “No answer?” His mother just stared at the demon in her hands. “Well, that’s just it isn’t it. There is no reason, and I’m not conforming to this nonconformist society.”
He turned and stomped up the stairs, catching, for the fleetest of moments, a wavy image, like a distant mirage, out of the corner of his eye but didn’t pay attention to it and simply kept on walking. It seemed, for all the trying he did, he would have done better thirty odd years ago, no matter what people today said.
*~*~*
Thursday and Friday passed rather quickly, and with relative quiet. Dash spent most of his time in his room, reading the news articles on the Fenton family, who he quickly realized was the subject to be studied in this strange treasure-hunt, and his parents were busying themselves with the party.
What kind of treasure was worth hiding for over two hundred years, and why hadn’t anyone found it yet if it was worth so much? Was it even worth anything? Sure the by its age historical value would be great, and it would probably fetch a pretty penny, but why was it hidden.
Setting the papers down again he rubbed at his eyes, straining in the fading light of Saturday evening. Halloween was coming, Halloween was coming.
“Skeletons will come after youu.” Dash mumbled to himself with a grin. “Big black bats and ugly cats, Ghosts and goblins tooooo.”
“Oh shut up or you’ll be humming it all night.” Danny grumbled coming out of the wardrobe, now filled with Dash’s cloths, in time to hear the annoying jingle. “And I will too.” Too late, Dash was smiling and humming and thumbing back through the news clippings he’d already read. “You remember that the hated party is tonight right?”
Dash rubbed at his ear, carefully closing the folder. “Mom’s probably getting anxious now, she’ll want to show me off to all the early arrivals.” He slid off the window seat, opening the curtains only a fraction to allow him to pass, and with just as much care slipped the papers back into the nightstand drawer.
Tugging his shirt over his head and tossing it on the floor in typical teenage sloppiness Dash walked towards the wardrobe to get his chosen outfit. “Well, at least she didn’t make it a costume party right?”
“You’re talking to yourself again.” Danny muttered.
“God I’m talking to myself again.”
“Fuck, why do I bother.” Danny grumbled.
“Wish this stupid key wasn’t always so cold.” Dash said as he tucked the key, which he had taken to wearing on a silver chain around his neck, into his turtleneck to avoid questioning looks from his parents. “eugh.” He shuddered from the slight chill.
“I wish to god you’d put that key down for two minutes so I can get on with scaring your ass out of here.” Danny yelled in annoyance causing the lights to flicker.
Dash glanced at the lamp. “Great power surge, it must be all those lights mom has up down there. Gotta tell her to use conservatively,” Dash paused a moment. “Nah, let the fuse blow, it’ll clear everyone out pretty well.” With that, and his clean professional-casual outfit arranged on his body perfectly he headed out the door.
Down the hall and down the stairs, Dash could already hear people chatting and laughing and his mother’s high-pitched voice was the loudest of them all.
“Oh Dash.” There she was, with his wonderful father as her side ornament. “Come here, I was just talking to this brilliant gentleman.”
A large Hispanic man with wide shoulders and a thick facial hair turned around to face him. “Hello.” He didn’t have an accent, despite his appearance, and reached a hand out to shake hands. Dash took his hand, not so much as blinking at the intense pressure asserted in the gesture. “Mr. Baxter, pleasure to meet you.” Dash gave a firm nod, not trusting his voice; sure it would betray the pain he was in. Finally the man let go and Dash let a whoosh of breath out through his nose.
“He has a young daughter at the local high school, and she’s just about your age, isn’t that just great?” His mom said charmingly. The man was obviously uncomfortable with her open display of interest in making him and this unknown girl close. No wonder he was so foreboding towards him, the guy probably thought he wanted at his daughter.
“Paulina, can you come here for a moment?”
“Yes Daddy?” A curvy Hispanic girl broke from a crowd of teenagers to walk over to him. Paulina was, Dash noticed, a very attractive young woman, but the man needn’t worry, even with her beauty Dash was far from mesmerized.
“Paulina, this is Mrs. Baxter’s son.” At her blank stare he continued. “He lives here, he’s hosting the party.”
He large green eyes immediately lit up. “Oh, oh really? Wow you live here in this big house? You’re an only child right? Wow, are you gonna go to our school?” Dash couldn’t seem to nod fast enough, this girl was as intense as her father, but more gushy than frightening. “Come on, come on. Come meet my socials. They’ll just love you.” She latched onto his arm and he felt, at the exact same moment a hard hand fall on his shoulder.
He gave a dulled look to the man who, reading nothing but boredom and, slight fear gave a nod and let his daughter drag him away to whoever may or may not hate him tomorrow.
Great.
“Hey guys!” Paulina shouted with unneeded glee. “Guess who this is!” She let go of his arm to push at his back propelling him forward and he found himself staring into the faces of almost every ethnicity he’d ever known at his other high school. There was a tall bulky Asian in a letter jacket, a little twig of a blonde, a curvy black girl, a plump geek with red hair and freckles holding cups of juice for everybody, and various other kids farther into the group who were obviously hovering.
“Your dad’s new boyfriend?” The black girl asked and Paulina scowled.
“No Valerie, not my dad’s new boyfriend, that’s called statutory rape and its wrong, right Lester?”
“Right.” Another geeky looking kid with glasses who was right behind the redhead, this one slightly thinner, smiled handing her a drink from the tray. Paulina beamed at him despite the obvious clique difference that should be between them.
“And to think I almost believed she knew the meaning all on her own.” The black girl, Valerie, whispered to the red-head making him laugh and almost drop the tray.
“My name’s Kwan.” Dash was shaken out of his observation by a thick pale hand jutting out towards him. He stared at it for a moment before grasping it in his own. “Its my families Name, but everybody here just calls me by it, better than my first name, its kind of embarrassing.”
“Dash.” He said, surprised his voice was so steady. This was all just weird, Asians with blacks and Hispanics? In his high school the only time that happened was in detention. “And that’s fine, my first name is Dashiel.”
“Dashiel hu? Suddenly I feel blessed.” The big boy’s grin softened the jest a bit and made it laughable for Dash.
“Yeah.” They pumped their hands twice and Kwan turned to the blonde.
“This is Star, short for nothing, nicked for nothing, and you don’t wanna know her last name.” Star elbowed him and he grunted in feigned pain. “And she’s my beautiful wonderful girlfriend. Some advice, don’t get your own.” This caused some cheers from the guys and a few laughs from the girls, apparently Star ruled the relationship, but it didn’t seem like Kwan minded too much.
“So, Dash, you really live in this old place?” Valerie asked. “I mean, last I hear some old shrew lived here.”
“My great aunt.” Dash said with a slight frown. “She passed away not too long ago. The house would have gone to my uncle and his family, but they died in a fire.”
“Oh yeah, the Manson’s. Wow you’re Sam’s cousin? Neeto. They were loaded.” Star laughed. “You couldn’t tell by the way Sam dressed and ascted though, she was such a little weirdo.”
Valerie made a dumping motion with her empty punch glass. “Ever heard os a thing called tact?” She growled. Dash knew, as he looked at the scowling girls, that he should feel insulted but couldn’t find even a spark of agitation within him. He hadn’t know the people. Even if they were family, how could he feel remorse or insult when he didn’t even know them? Another thing he lacked, it seemed, was human compassion.
“So, what do you guys just stand around and gossip or something because I should probably act like I’m doing something before my mom swoops in to cart me off elsewhere.” He scratched his neck, glancing over at the woman chatting it up with an old Asian couple.
“The blonde chick talking to my grandparents? We can avoid her no problem.” Kwan smiled. “Actually, hey, we were planning on doing something later on tonight anyway, brought all the requirements, why not do it here?”
“Wha?” Dash looked at the big guy a moment, confused.
“Yeah. Hey Dash.” Paulina touched his arm, bringing his attention back to her. She’d been at his side the whole time. “You wouldn’t happen to have, say, a bit of salt would you?” She smiled sweetly, her dark eyelashes drooping down. “It’s a necessity we seemed to have forgotten.”
“Uh, yeah its in the, uh, pantry. Mom bought some for the food and-”
“Great! I saw an old garden area out front out of sight of the driveway. You guys go set up while our host gets us the required protection.” Paulina took Dash’s arm again and, like before, pulled him through the crowd of people.
“So, where is the salt?” She asked when they reached the kitchen, opeing up one of the many cupboards.
“Um. Butlers pantry, the big one that looks like a closet. Second shelf.”
“Oh, yes I have it.” Paulina disappeared into the small room and Dash brushed his disheveled hair back into place. He hadn’t put any gel in it and it kept trying to fall down into the natural part in his hair. Wetting his fingers in the sink he patted the strands until satisfied.
“Finished pruning?” He turned to see Paulina tossing the little cylinder of salt back and forth in her hands. “Let’s go join the other’s”
“Uh, what are we doing exactly.” Dash opened the kitchen door, leading her through the crowd this time to the front door. He saw her father frowning at them, and she waved at him before them slipped out into the cold night air. Dash was glad he had chosen the black turtleneck even though it was warm inside. He felt a bit of a breeze caress his face and dislodge some of his hair from its style. Very glad.
“A séance of sorts.” She said offhandedly.
“You mean like, a summoning or something?”
“Yeah. We thought hey Manson was all gothic and dark right, so why not go witchy like her for a night? And what better night then good old Halloween. And you know there’s a full moon tonight? The first in forty years. It’s a sign.” She said sign in a dramatic drawled out way that turned the whole conversation mocking.
“So you think you can actually perform a witch’s ritual?” Dash stopped and stood on the porch looking out at the moving shadows, easily seen in the light of the large full moon.
“We looked it all up online and made our own chant and everything. Plus we watched all the great witch movies like The Craft, The Covenant, and Harry Potter these past few weeks. We’re like, the experts.”
When Dash simply kept starring she slipped her cold hand into his big warm one, squeezing it, brushing her arm up against his. Dash felt the urge to move away just a bit, but thought it’d be impolite.
“Come on Dash.” Paulina said with a wide smile, shaking the little case of salt. “Lets go chat up the local spooks.”
“Uh, sure.” He said allowing her to once again lead him to the others, all gathered on a large patch of dirt, what was once the vegetable garden but due to fall coming and the caretaker hired by Maurice Foley it had been shriveled up, cleared away, and raked, leaving only a long empty lot of soft brown dirt. In the center was a bunch of rocks the boys had gathered and piled in a circle with wet looking wood glistening in the moonlight laid out in the center.
The tall Asian boy had a large stick in his hand and was busy drawing a wide circle in the dirt around the fire pit with a five-point star inside, the fire to be lit in the exact center. The blonde girl, Star was her name, had a big black purse full of thick white candles and laid five of the largest at each point clockwise as Lester ushered everyone in and Valerie handed out the remaining white candles to each of them. All the while Paulina lifted the tab and began pouring the salt inside the small rut the stick had made in the soft dirt to form the circle counter clockwise, eventually passing Star.
Dash listened as they recited some poem, taking his thick candle from the curvy black girl as he tried to make sense of whatever chant they were saying.
“Oh creature of the night, sacred spirit of the moon, commander of darkness, we humbly ask that you bless and protect this circle, may no evil step foot on this ground, banish all negativity and harm from us, and let us be pure and clean.”
They repeated it over and over until it all ran together in Dash’s head and he couldn’t even hear it any more, it took a moment before he realized the others had simply picked up on it and were now mumbling it under their breath, stumbling over the obviously rehearsed lines and clutching their candles for magical protection.
Kwan struck a match and lit their candles and the five of them, Paulina, Star, Lester, and Valerie all moved to the large candles at the points.
“Oh creature of the night, sacred spirit of the moon, commander of darkness, we humbly ask that you bless and protect this circle,” they lit the candles, and in one fluid movement turned around at the same time, and kept up the same monotonous chant as they walked over to the pile of twigs and logs, “may no evil step foot on this ground, banish all negativity and harm from us, and let us be pure and clean.” And just as clean was said they all, at the same time, put their dripping candles down into the twigs and the flickering flames licked across the wood. In an instant a large fire burst from the top, the sudden intensity of it causing the five teens to step back hastily as it climbed.
“Think we put too much fuel on it.” Star mumbled to Kwan and suddenly Dash understood what that wetness on the wood was. Still, it was a good theatric, as the other teens in the circle were tensed, holding their breath and watching the flickering fire.
“Don’t leave the circle.” Paulina warned, and even Dash felt like for some reason he had to obey her. “We’re going to try and communicate with the spirits.”
Dash felt a cold finger slide up his spine and turned to gaze back towards the big house, feeling as if he should, despite Paulina’s warning, step away from them all and head back inside. He didn’t like this one bit, and had the strangest suspicion that something not all together nice was lurking just on the edge of the circle, as though it were some sort of invisible barrier, testing it, waiting for an invitation.
He shook himself. ‘Yeah, real logical Baxter. Next you’ll be hanging garlic above your windows to keep the vampires at bay.”
*~*~*
Danny watched from the patio as the fire was lit. What a bunch of morons. If they wanted to talk to the spirits why not just sit down with a pen and paper and chat? Preferably with some protection, but honestly was all the theatrics necessary?
He watched as a few specters flitted across the yard, avoiding the teenagers as any intelligent being would do on Halloween, yet their amateur attempts at a ritual and the negative energies coming from their desire to awe and frighten the others had caught the eye of a few less than pleasant things. Normally he wouldn’t intervene, let them get the crap scared out of them like everyone else who tried spiritual communing without proper protection, what did it matter to him?
But Dash was in that circle, and if he ran spooked he might loose the key, and someone else could pick it up and then he may never get it back. He couldn’t let that happen, so gathering up the newfound strength he had on this night where the veil was thinnest, he walked towards the fire. He would think of a way to get Dash out before the spooks, if any actually did happen, happened.
“We call upon the spirits on this all hallows eve, those who have passed on into the eternal darkness. We call you here, come to us, share with us your company.” Danny scoffed. Yeah, open invitation to whoever may be lurking. These kids were doing something seriously dangerous and didn’t even realize it.
His trudging invisible footsteps stopped just outside the circle, he could feel the small barrier, the very weak shield they had erected around themselves believing it alone would keep the bad things at bay. He kicked a stone across the thin white line, feeling the satisfaction he always got when he touched tangible things. He liked tossing and throwing stuff, even if it was exerting. He didn’t want to try and break through, but he didn’t want to wait around for one of those negative beings to decide to join them.
Dash turned suddenly and Danny caught the reflection of the fire in his blue eyes. He looked distressed for a second, but calmed down. Danny glanced over his shoulder. No one there, no movement from the party in the house, what was Dash looking at?
“Hey, did you want to join?” Danny snapped his head back, startled. Dash had turned just a little to face him, him, not someone else, him. Dash smiled, and held out a hand. “Come on.”
Danny drew back a bit, staring at the hand extended over the circle.
“Come on, don’t be scared. It’s all harmless theatrics anyway.”
Danny shook himself at the comment. “I’m not scared.” He said, taking Dash’s hand, the solidity of it against his palm sending a jolt of electricity through him, “Just a little… apprehensive.” Dash really could see him, but, but how?
“Sure.” And Dash pulled Danny through the barrier and into the circle.
Danny gasped at the sudden jolt, feeling air enter through his mouth and whoosh down his throat to expand his lungs. A thump, two thumps, three, a rhythmic beating of his heart. The heat of the fire brushed against his skin, sending chills through him and stiffening the hairs along his arms and neck to an erect attention. Hair brushed across his eyes and he reached up to brush it away, feeling as his cold hand wiped across his brow.
“Hey, you okay?” Dash asked and Danny turned to him, realizing he had squeezed Dash’s hand a bit too hard by the slightly pained look on his face. He released the grip, but Dash still kept the contact.
“I’m fine.” Danny said, breathless, feeling anything but. What was going on? Heat, chills, feeling? He watched as the Hispanic girl tried once again to call out to the spirits, not noticing one was pulled right into their circle. “Just a little cold.”
“Yeah, I noticed.” Dash said, rubbing his thumb over Danny’s palm. “Your hands are like ice, here.” Dash held the candle between them, lifting Danny’s hand to hover near it. “Not as good as a bonfire, but it should help a little.”
Danny smiled, cupping his hands around the flame like he was protecting it from a strong wind, enjoying the feel of the heat brush across his cold fingers. It was nice to get a little warm, it seemed like he had been cold for far too long.
His gaze drifted from the flickering flame to Dash’s face, smiling, looking at their hands, then downward to the key around the blonde’s neck.
Whatever reason for all this, one thing was certain. He had to get the key.
This was the perfect opportunity.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Let’s see, Danny and Dash, one possessing a key, one desperately wanting to obtain said key. Why does this sound so familiar? –glances over at Silver Bells-
I’ve always had a big Paulina/Lester Valerie/Melvin obsession, and this fic just kind of barely hints at it. It all fits in with my Kwan/Danny craze a year or so ago, my popular minorities all getting some looser love, guess it’s my California integration experience. Seriously the biggest problem we had at Barstow in my generation was the GSA forming at the high school, and it lasted maybe a month. If you throw down the race card in Barstow someone’s going to smack you. Yet I visited a high school in Bakersfield and it was like an invisible barrier was drawn around everyone.
I realize some schools, I certainly hope most, are like Barstow and everyone gets along fine, but seeing Bakersfield reminded me that some are not and I figure, why not have Dash come from one of those schools. It would be weird for him to suddenly walk into a group of such variety when he’s used to hanging out with the wonder bread of society. Though, as he mentioned, he’s not used to hanging out with anyone. This day and age if you don’t have some sort of individuality style you’re not shit (at least in my school) and his knockoff seventies football look wouldn’t give him the kind of points it does in Casper high.
In case anybody’s wondering I hung out with the miscellaneous crowd. We were considered the Goth group, but only about five of us wore black constantly and I wasn’t one of them. Even though I’m Goth, I’m more of a traditional mind believing I don’t have to were ten pounds of white foundation, black lipstick, and enough eyeliner to make me blind, old jeans and a t-shirt were fine with me, it was my ideals that made me individualistic.
Anyway, bending some Samhain facts for the sake of fiction. I used a twisted version of a basic ritual, but I doubt the idiots casting could tell the difference between that and a séance, the ritual used is in no way to be trusted as truth, it is, in fact, horrible fiction with only a few noteworthy facts. I had fun ruining everything though.
Also, though I have never tried it, I am not at all certain you can actually give a ghost flesh and body for a few short hours on Halloween, even with a full moon. Though a manifestation of will may make it seem tangible, giving them a body, yeah far be it from me to doubt the universe but even in my world, I do not think that is really possible.
Remember to always practice safety when trying to commune with spirits, and be sure to understand the steps and procedures throughout the ritual, especially if you have no experience, or experienced person there with you. As said by someone I can’t recall right now, “They can’t all be good.” Play it safe, keep limited contact and have some measure of defense. Note the idiotic teenagers didn’t cast a shield charm or anything, and only did the circle of salt because it is often mentioned in books and movies.
A bit of something someone obviously didn’t tell Dash, but if at any time you feel frightened or on edge, don’t go through with it. Trust your instincts; they’re often smarter than you are. I know mine are.
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The Most Haunted Story in History