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As much time as Sam spent with her best friends, sometimes she enjoyed a little bit of time alone.
Tucker was helping his mother bake cookies for some kind of fundraiser for the hospital, and Danny was busy visiting Pandora for fighting lessons. Apparently they were using swords today.
As fun as it sounded, Sam opted to stay behind, it had been a while since she'd been down to the park to feed the ducks. She didn't get quiet moments like that very often any more.
There was an uncharacteristic skip to her gait as she walked to the park, a canvas tote bag swinging from her arm.
Living in Amity Park, and especially hanging around with Danny, gave her an eerie sense to when something was amiss. Nothing quite like Danny's ghost sense, but she'd learned to detect a particular chill to the air, a prickling at the back of her neck. It could easily be mistaken for a chilly breeze, but Sam knew better. The crunch of gravel under Sam's boots was the only sound permeating the still air, not even the trees were rustling.
She continued her walk through the park, past the wishing fountain and through a trail where the trees grew slightly more dense.
The trail opened up to a large pond, it wasn't anything especially picturesque, the reeds were a little overgrown, the ground was muddy, but there were a few simple weather worn benches by the path that looped around the water.
Sam took a seat, pulling out a bag of frozen peas. She opened it, tipped a few into her hand and tossed them into the water.
The ducks immediately sped across the pond toward her, fighting for the peas that the turtles hadn't already gotten to.
Instead of grabbing another handful, she held the bag out to the empty seat to her left, waiting for a moment before shaking the bag impatiently.
A green hand slipped into the bag, pulling out a handful of peas before tossing them into the water.
"How'd you know I was here?" Kitty asked, now sitting visibly on the other end of the bench as Sam poured out more peas for both of them.
"I have my ways." Sam smirked. "What I want to know is why you've been following me all week."
"You knew for that long and you didn't say nothin'?" Kitty huffed. "Damn, I gotta up my game."
A duck waddled up and nibbled on her boot.
"Alright alright, ya hungry little doofus." Kitty lowered a hand full of peas and cooed as the duck happily ate from her palm. "Aww these guys aren't shy at all, do you come here a lot?"
"When I can." Sam tossed a few more peas into the water for the turtles. "So why are you following me?"
Kitty sat back and pressed her lips together, thinking.
"Look it's just... I don't remember much from when I was livin', you know? It's all sorta grey and fuzzy, I can't remember what anyone looked like, except Johnny." she tossed some peas to a smaller duck at the back of the group. "But as soon as I showed up here in town and I saw your face, I thought I felt... I dunno, something. Like I'd seen you before, or maybe you just reminded me of someone, but I can't remember who, it's like grabbing smoke."
She lobbed a few peas a little harder than was necessary at the water. The turtles sucked them up greedily.
"So you've just been following me hoping you might remember something else?" Sam asked.
"Yeah," Kitty sighed. "But it's not workin'."
Sam swung her foot idly between a pair of scuffling ducks, splitting them up before tossing out some more peas.
"Maybe I'm related to someone you knew. Where did you grow up?"
Kitty frowned down at the water.
"I... I don't know." she said, deflating somewhat. "I didn't even realise I forgot that."
Sam couldn't help but feel for her, Danny had told her that ghosts would often forget things from their past, especially once they'd been dead for longer than they'd been alive. Somehow she had never really considered how terrifying that must be.
"You know..." Sam started carefully. "I could show you some old family photos. Maybe you'll recognise someone?"
Kitty looked up, eyes shining brightly.
"Really? You'd do that for me?"
"Why not?" Sam shrugged. "If you were here to cause trouble you would have done it by now."
"Aw, I never thought you'd wanna do something like that for me." said Kitty, smiling brightly. "You always seemed like such a bitch."
Sam laughed.
"If you'd spent a week being someone that wasn't Paulina, I would probably have seemed like a whole lot less of a bitch."
"So you guys are big rivals or somethin'?" Kitty asked, grabbing some more peas and giggling as three ducks tried to eat from her hand at once.
"It's more that we have... conflicting ideologies. She thinks that appearances and reputation are the most important things in life, just like my parents." Sam lobbed some more peas into the water, they both watched them disappear as the turtles quickly snapped them up. "It's shallow and stupid, and I don't get why they have to push that shit on everyone. I don't care what people think, I just want to be whoever the hell I wanna be without having to fight for it all the time."
Kitty's face turned contemplative as she tapped her nails on the back of the bench.
"I think... I was like that." she said, slowly. "I wanted to feel fun and exciting, but my parents..."
She trailed off, frowning.
"My parents... I didn't like them. They didn't like me bein' the way I was, I just can't remember why."
Sam emptied out the last of the peas and scattered them over the ground, she scrunched up the empty packet and shoved it back into her tote bag.
"You know, if we went to school together we would probably have gotten along." said Sam as she stood up, gesturing toward the path. "Let's go check out those photos."
Instead of floating invisibly behind, Kitty walked by Sam's side as they headed back to her house. She idly waved at people as they drove past, grinning when someone stared a little too long and almost ran a red light.
"You know it's nice bein' able to walk around in the day." Kitty said, skipping a little. "Wish I could do it more often."
"What's stopping you?" Sam asked.
"What do you think?" Kitty's lip pulled up in disgust. "Any time I show up your dumb friend sucks me up in his stupid thermos. Only reason I can walk around right now is because I got you as my get out of jail free card."
"Danny doesn't care if you just want to walk around." Sam scoffed. "He lets ghosts wander around town all the time, he only gets involved when you start breaking things."
"Uggghhh but just walking around is so boring." Kitty pouted. "I mean yeah it's nice and I like it but it gets old real quick."
"Then you'll have to get used to getting tossed back in the ghost zone. Do not pass go, do not collect $200."
"Don't you ever get sick of his goody goody attitude?" Kitty asked. "I mean you and I aren't so different right? You're all about the rebel gig, don't you ever feel like keyin' some asshole's car, or takin' a baseball bat to some mail boxes?"
"Only if they deserve it." said Sam with a laugh. "But I feel like you aren't especially picky about whose stuff you're breaking."
They approached the door to the Manson mansion, Sam hopped up the steps and stuck the key in the lock. She touched the mezuzah on the doorpost without a second thought before opening the door and standing aside to invite Kitty in.
The ghost stared up at her warily.
"I can't get past it."
"Past what?" Sam asked.
"The mezuzah, it keeps me out."
"What?" Sam frowned. "It hasn't stopped other ghosts from getting in."
"Well it stops me." Kitty insisted. "I think it's got somethin' to do with what we believed in when we were alive. I haven't got a problem with churches but when Johnny tried to ride his bike through one he couldn't get in. His mom raised him Catholic, he says he doesn't believe in any of that stuff, but I think he still does, deep down."
"So does that mean you were Jewish?" Sam asked, smiling curiously.
"I AM Jewish." Kitty huffed and crossed her arms. "Bein' a ghost hasn't changed that, it just... means that we got a few things a little wrong."
Sam thought about that for a moment, before stepping aside and gesturing toward the door again.
"Well, if you've been invited and you're not going to cause any trouble, then I don't see why you shouldn't be able to come in."
Kitty climbed the steps slowly, fingers reaching out and cautiously brushing over the mezuzah, she didn't feel anything unusual, no zap or burn or pain. She took a step through the doorway and passed the threshold without issue, no invisible force or barrier like the last time she tried to follow Sam inside.
"Well, what do you know." she said, grinning.
Sam lead her into a large, open planned kitchen and dining area, the tiles were bright white save for the specks of mud Sam's boots tracked carelessly through the room. The decor was minimalist, the atmosphere bland and sterile, she could smell some kind of citrus surface cleaner.
The back wall was all windows, leading to a patio surrounded by perfectly trimmed grass. As they approached, Sam turned, heading towards a door to their right.
The next room felt a lot more friendly, it was full of bookshelves and red tones. The lounges looked soft and inviting, a fireplace sat cold and empty against the back wall, but Kitty didn't have to try hard to imagine it roaring to life, filling the room with its warm glow.
"This is basically my Grandma's part of the house." Sam informed her, voice low. "Her bedroom is just through there, she's usually napping around this time of day so try not to make too much noise."
Kitty slipped off her jacket and laid it over the back of the lounge, already feeling at home in the cosy little room. She looked over the books as Sam fussed around some kind of large ornate chest.
"Here it is." She hefted a large photo album from the chest, carefully closing and latching it again. "Let's see if you recognise anyone in here."
Kitty sat down beside Sam as she opened up the pristine book, the outer cover was beige with the name Manson inscribed in golden cursive on the front. The first page was full of old faded photos, in greyscale or sepia tones.
"Ugh, I'm not that old." said Kitty, flicking ahead a few pages.
The pictures were colourful now, but still grainy, there was a young blonde boy in very seventies style jeans leaning casually against a Chevrolet.
"Wait hold up," Kitty pointed at the boy. "Him, I feel like I've seen him before."
"That's my dad." said Sam, surprised. "His name is Jeremy, did you know him?"
Kitty hummed a little, gently tracing a finger over the picture.
"Jeremy... Jeremy, I'm not sure," she frowned. "But he definitely looks familiar."
They continued through the book, when suddenly Kitty slapped her hand down roughly on a photo of a pair of young women.
"Her! I know her! She was a mega bitch!"
"Shhh keep it down." Sam hissed.
"Sorry," Kitty pointed to the blonde girl in the photo. "That one! I don't know how I knew her, but I definitely knew her. She was such a brat."
Sam slipped the photo out of its sleeve and read the neat cursive on the back.
"This is... my Aunt Caroline, in 1985. She's my dad's sister." Sam looked up at Kitty, amused. "I can't believe you had beef with my family."
"Your family are snobs." Kitty sniffed. "Carrie was such a ditz, she thought she was sooo bitchin' because her daddy bought her a Mercedes."
"Yeah, that sounds about right." Sam grimaced. "Did you guys go to school together or something?"
"Maybe..." Kitty took the photo from Sam's hand, staring intently. "I'm pretty sure I skipped school a lot, I hated it there. It was a private school, we had to wear uniforms, barf."
"I would never have guessed you were a private school kid." Sam shook her head. "But most people would say that about me so it's not like I can judge."
"You went to private school?" Kitty asked, "How'd you end up in that Casper High dump?"
"Got myself expelled." said Sam, voice thick with pride. "Elementary, middle, and high school, got kicked out of all three."
"Damn, you're good."
Sam grinned, slipping the photo back in its sleeve and continuing to the next page.
Kitty pointed to a few other photos, remarking on their familiarity, but not quite able to grasp how she knew them, the memories only flickered in her periphery.
"Wait," Kitty whispered, fingers brushing over a polaroid containing three people. "This is..."
The picture looked as though it were taken at some kind of party, a man and a woman faced the camera, each with a glass of champagne raised in their hands. The woman's other hand rested on the shoulder of a teenage girl with auburn hair, pulled into a tidy braid. She stared glumly at the camera.
"That's Katherine." Sam said, pointing to the girl. "She was my dad's cousin, but she got hit by a car when she was-"
Sam paused, looking over at Kitty's wide eyes and then back to the photo.
"Noooo way." Sam pulled the photo out of the sleeve. "Is this you?"
Kitty took the photo in trembling hands.
"I... I forgot I used to look like that." she fiddled with a lock of her green teased hair. "I remember this party, I didn't want to go but mom and dad threatened to take away all my records and cassettes if I didn't."
Sam stared at Kitty, mouth agape.
"You're Car Crash Katherine?! My dad talks about you all the time! He always told me about the shit you used to get up to, he'd tell me that any kind of 'rebellious behaviour' was a slippery slope to 'dying on the back of some delinquent's motorcycle'." Sam put a hand on Kitty's shoulder. "You were my bad influence role model."
Kitty's red eyes shone with tears, photo still in hand, she wrapped her arms around Sam.
"This is majorly wicked! My legacy lives on! Corrupting the youth from beyond the grave!" Kitty laughed. "My parents would go totally mental."
She stopped laughing, her face turning forlorn as she drew back from Sam and stared down at the picture.
"Are they still alive?" she asked, a tremble in her voice.
"Yeah..." said Sam. "They live in some upscale retirement home in Florida. They don't come around very often."
Kitty traced a finger over their faces.
"I wonder if they miss me." she said quietly, and then continued in a bitter tone. "Or if they were glad to be rid of the family embarrassment."
Sam didn't answer, she had wondered the same thing herself, if her parents would even care if she died. They hadn't given her a lot of reason to think they would.
She rested a sympathetic hand on Kitty's arm.
"Oh, you have a friend over bubbeleh?" a croaky voice spoke from the bedroom doorway.
Sam and Kitty both turned to see Ida Manson shuffling into the room, cleaning her glasses with her sleeve.
"Sorry Grandma, we didn't mean to be too loud." Sam apologised. "This is my... um, friend, Kitty. Kitty this is my Grandma Ida-"
"Ida?!" Kitty shot to her feet, staring in shock at the old woman. "Aunt Ida?!"
Ida squinted at Kitty, before quickly setting her glasses back on her face.
"Well as I live and breathe, is that you Kathy?"
"Oh my god this is getting super weird." Sam whispered.
Kitty leapt over the ottoman to wrap Ida up in a tight hug, the old woman was surprised for a moment, but held her warmly in return.
"It's me Aunt Ida! Not really living or breathing but it's me!" Kitty laughed breathlessly.
"Oh my goodness, when all the ghosts started showing up all over town I wondered if I would ever see someone I knew." She rubbed comforting circles on Kitty's back as the ghost choked on a few sobs. "It's good to see you again Kathy."
Ida pulled away and wiped a tear from Kitty's face.
"And I'm so glad you aren't stuck wearing what your parents buried you in."
Kitty couldn't help but laugh through her tears.
"Let me guess, it was that putrid blue dress, wasn't it?"
"The dress wasn't nearly as bad as what they did to your hair." Ida snickered, patting Kitty's hand. "It had little ribbons in it and everything."
"I almost forgot you." Kitty placed her palm gently against Ida's face. "You were the only one in the family who ever loved me for being me, and I almost forgot you. I'm so sorry, I should have come to find you sooner but I just-"
"Shhhh, it's okay bubbeleh." Ida grasped her hand tight. "I think being dead is a pretty good excuse for forgetting a few things."
Sam stood beside the lounge, watching the two in shock, she wasn't entirely certain whether or not to intrude. Whatever she had been expecting to discover with Kitty today, it certainly hadn't been this.
Though in hindsight, it did explain Kitty's familiarity with Sam, people always said she had taken after her Grandma.
Ida let go of Kitty and hobbled over to the photo album still sitting on the lounge.
"Oh you don't want to look at that album." she said, as she dropped it onto the coffee table. She wandered to the other side of the room and began rummaging around in a small cupboard. "You want this one."
She pulled out a book with well worn, peeling edges. Pieces of the plastic sleeves had cracked off and crumbled away. It was old, and weatherbeaten, it was obvious that Ida had looked through it many many times.
"Here we go." she sat down in the middle of the lounge, gesturing for the two girls to come sit beside her. "These are the forbidden photos."
She opened the pages, the photos inside were entirely different from the 'official' family album, there were no perfectly poised, prim and proper photos of people in nice, presentable clothes. They were all candid shots, people in the middle of eating or laughing, some were stumbling around blind drunk, a few were smoking joints. There were pictures from parties and protest rallies, in backyards and drive ins.
There was a picture of Jeremy as a young boy, grinning with one of his front teeth missing and grass in his hair.
"Only in this family would losing your baby teeth make a photo 'unsavoury'." Ida grizzled as she continued through the album. "I saved so many pictures that my husband would have thrown out otherwise."
"Ugh, Uncle Peter was such a prude, he wouldn't even let me in the house if I didn't have my shoulders covered up." Kitty rolled her eyes.
"He used to be so much more relaxed when we were young." Ida sighed. "He changed when he inherited his father's business, he forgot how to have fun."
A few pages later Kitty squealed in excitement.
"Oh my god! That's Frankie! She was my best friend, we used to do everything together!"
The Kitty in the photo looked far more like the Kitty Sam knew. Her hair was teased up, and she was wearing a crop top and a miniskirt. The other girl, Frankie, had short curled hair and a leather jacket. They each had an arm around the others' shoulder and grinned wildly.
"I love this one." Ida smiled as she pulled the picture out of the sleeve. "That was the night I gave you a lift to that concert."
"Oh that show was sooo good! I got my nose pierced there! It got so infected, Mom grounded me for a month." Kitty laughed.
"Man, and I thought I was cool for skipping school to go see Circus Gothica." Sam grinned. "I'm gonna have to come home with a tattoo next time."
"I can't believe I forgot about Frankie, I can't believe I forgot about all of this." Kitty held the photo close to her chest, a few tears running down her face. "I'm so glad it's not gone for good."
She kept the photo in hand as they looked through the rest of the album. There were many pictures of Ida, all of them with other people of all walks of life.
"Oh this was when you took us to that pride parade!" Kitty smiled. "You made Frankie so happy, and you knew a lot of the drag queens there, like a LOT."
"Grandma took me to a drag show when I was 10," said Sam. "Even took me backstage to meet them all, my parents thought we went to the theatre to see Romeo and Juliet."
"Oh I have photos from that." Ida flipped through the pages, getting closer to the end of the album. "Here we are, oh Evelyn just LOVED you."
Sam looked at the picture of Evelyn, frowning slightly.
"Oh weird, she kinda looks like Mr Lancer's sister, he keeps her photo on his desk..." Sam paused as she processed what she just said. "That's not his sister is it?"
"You probably shouldn't bring it up." said Ida gently. "Teachers can get in trouble for associating with this sort of thing."
"That's so bogus!" Kitty cried. "I really thought this kinda stuff would be better in the future!"
"It is," Ida assured her. "But we're a long way from perfect."
Ida flipped back through the album, searching for more pictures of Kitty and Frankie. There were a good few of them, each one Ida pulled out and passed over for Kitty to look at and hold onto.
"Oh woah, is that Johnny?" Sam pointed to a picture of Kitty sitting on the back of a motorcycle with a blonde boy. "He looks exactly the same, maybe a little less pale."
"Oh, did Johnny come back as a ghost too?" Ida asked.
"Yeah! We've been together all this time, in sickness and in death." Kitty beamed. "Mom and dad blamed him for everything I did, even if he wasn't around when I did it. They said him and Frankie were 'corrupting' me."
She rolled her eyes.
"I bet they blamed him for my death too. They'd be so mad if they knew we were still together."
"Just goes to show they had no chance of keeping you two apart." Ida said. "Not even death could do that."
Kitty held the photo tight in both hands, her shoulders began to shake slightly.
"It was my fault you know." she said with a trembling little giggle. "Funny huh? My parents always blamed him for everything, but in the end it was my fault we got hit. We were havin' a fight over somethin' stupid and I distracted him-"
Ida wrapped an arm around Kitty, patting her head comfortingly as she laid it against the old woman's shoulder.
"I think you're being too hard on yourself bubbeleh." Ida whispered gently into her hair. "It was raining, the truck that hit you was running a red light, the driver was charged for both your deaths. Even if you did distract him, you weren't the only card at play that night."
She gave Kitty a light shake.
"And don't think I didn't see the way Johnny used to drive that thing, he was reckless, always going too fast. I have no doubt that he wasn't paying as much attention as he should have been." She placed a kiss on the girl's forehead and squeezed her tight. "It's not fair to hold all of that responsibility on yourself, even if you both did everything right, that truck still would have run that red light, it still would have been raining. It was just pure rotten luck."
Sam had never heard a ghost talk about their death before, even Danny didn't like talking about his accident, and asking about it was incredibly taboo. Sam had been pushing her luck earlier just by mentioning the car crash.
It said a lot about Kitty's love for Ida that she chose to open up about it. Sam couldn't say she was surprised, her Grandma had always been like that. Never anything but an endless well of love and support, and the occasional kick in the pants if you needed it.
"Johnny's always had rotten luck." Kitty sniffed. "Follows him like a shadow."
"Literally." Sam snorted.
After a few more moments, Ida pulled herself away from Kitty, she got up and began rooting through the cupboards, muttering to herself.
"Aha, here it is."
She brought over an empty photo album, it was roughly the size of a small pocketbook, containing only one photo sleeve per page.
"I meant to fill this with photos for Sam to keep." Ida admitted as she shuffled back over to the girls. "But I don't think she'll mind donating it to a good cause."
She winked at Sam, who nodded back.
"Here," Ida pressed the little album into Kitty's hands. "Memories are a fickle thing, but photos are forever."
"I can't take these!" Kitty insisted, pushing the album back. "They're your memories too!"
"Oh my god you're both so old." Sam laughed, "Dad has a printer/scanner. I can make copies."
As Sam took the photos to her dad's office, Ida and Kitty pored over the rest of the album, Kitty picking out more photos to copy. She chose a few of Ida and Sam, and even one of Carrie.
"She was a total loser and I hated her but I don't hate remembering her, you know? I want to remember everything, even the bad stuff."
She took a photo of her parents, just one.
When Sam came back with the last batch of photos, Ida finished slipping them into the little album.
"There's still a few sleeves left." Sam pointed out, holding up her phone with a smile. "We've got room for a couple of family reunion pics."
The two girls squished up against Ida as Sam snapped as many shots as she could. Ones where they smiled, ones where they laughed, ones where they laid haphazardly across the lounge together.
Then Sam took a few candids of just Kitty and Ida, as they looked through the new album they'd just made together. Capturing Kitty laughing at something as Ida looked at her with a soft, loving smile.
Kitty clutched the album to her chest as she gave Ida a long, drawn out hug.
"Thank you so much." she said, her voice thick with gratitude. "It's like I can see my life in colour again."
She left the house with the assurance that she would always be welcome back, at any time, and a promise that she would always be looking out for her 'new favourite cousin'.
Sam flicked through the photos she took on her phone, she would have to make sure to have copies printed by the time Kitty returned to visit.
She knew Kitty coming over regularly was going to make things complicated, her apparent newfound protectiveness over Sam could potentially backfire in many spectacular ways, she was petty and troublesome when in the right mood.
But then again, so was Ida, and so was Sam.
At least she had better things to do now than beat up strangers' mail boxes, Danny was certainly going to be glad to hear that.