Hello people, this is a spin-off of my extended one-shot "Another Side of Me" however, you do not have to have read that one to read this one, it might just make this story a little easier to understand. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 1:

Sam POV-

Third day of school and Lancer has already assigned a project.

Ugh.

Seriously, I thought I wouldn't have to deal with any more of Mr. Lancer's projects after freshmen year, but, he decided to start teaching sophomores now, so, once again, he is my, Danny's, and Tucker's English teacher.

'It could be worse,' I reasoned with myself, 'we could be doing a project about actual English work.'

Thankfully, instead of making us do a book report or an essay, Lancer assigned a "getting to know you" project (despite the fact that he had most of us as students already). He told to dig through all of our old family photos and create photo presentation about our family.

Being that, I am one of Lancer's favorite students (a fact that completely baffles me, given my opposition to authority), I know that I could just pick a few pictures and BS my way to an A, but, in all honesty, I don't actually mind the project (well, other than the fact that I am currently sitting in my hotter-than-the-surface-of-the-sun attic digging through dusty boxes).

My parents have always been rather tight-lipped about our family, my mother especially, which, of course, made me exceptionally curious when I was younger, but I was never able to dig anything up.

Now, at least I had an excuse.

So far, I had selected a few photos of my grandma, both my father's mom, who lives with us, and my mother's mom, who I remember was an alcoholic and died when I was five. I also got a few pictures of my dad's dad who only passed away four years ago. However, there were no pictures of my mom's dad. I never knew him, and my mom never talks about him. She never even told me how he died. Finally, I got a few photos of my great-grandpa who invested the twisty toothpick thing, a few of my parents, and a few of me when I was younger.

I chuckled, picking out one especially funny photo of myself.

In the photo, I looked to be about three or four and someone (*cough* my mother) had put me in a pink party dress complete with giant horrendous bows and flowers. Seriously, I looked like an old lady's throw pillow. Yuck. The funny part was that the four-year-old-me wasn't happy, at all. I had my arms crossed (to the best of my ability around all of the pink fluff) and I was glaring at the camera.

It's refreshing to know that, even back then, I was a rebellious pain in the ass. Some things never change.

I momentarily considered adding this photo to the stack I was using for the project, but, when I realized that I would probably never hear the end of it from Tucker, I filed it back in the box.

So far I had gone through three boxes and there wasn't anything that I hadn't seen before.

Three years ago, my parents had gone paperless, and now had every one of these pictures played on an endless reel on the living room TV. And because we never used this TV (this was the formal living room, after all) the only function that TV served was to roll these pictures. Therefore, we saw these pictures, a lot.

Now, normally, I would be thrilled about my parents doing something that helps the environment. But, I'm also a really sentimental person, so I would have liked to have, at least some, of these pictures displayed around the house in decorative frames. But apparently it is tasteless for families to display picture frames around the house. Yet another thing my mom criticizes about Danny's mom.

Of course, I always thought it was sweet the way his mom had he and Jazz's baby pictures around the house, no matter how embarrassing Danny might find them.

Oh well, moving on.

I pulled another box from the stack and began to sift through it.

There was a picture of me and ugh Paulina.

Believe it or not (I still have a hard time believing it), we were actually friends (*shudder*) in kindergarten. That is, until we started first grade and she decided that I wasn't cool enough to be her friend. I also considered using this picture, just to embarrass Paulina. But, once again, I would never hear the end of it.

I was half-tempted to rip it in half. However, I inevitably put it back in the box. It might be funny at our class reunion or something, you know, when I'm a successful market research analyst and she's a prostitute.

Three boxes later, I still didn't really have any pictures that weren't all posed and stereotypical.

And, I soo didn't want my project to look exactly like everyone else's.

I was just about to give up and go ask my grandma if she had any pictures stuffed away in her room, when I accidentally kicked a stack of boxes behind me that had been labeled "Books." The heavy box toppled to the floor with a loud thud and several books spilled out onto the plywood floor.

I sighed, flipping over the box so that I could stack the books back in it.

The books were old and covered in dust. Most of them were hardback and several were textbooks. My guess would be that they were from when my mom was in high school and college. But one book stood out from the rest.

Because it wasn't a book.

At the very bottom of the box was a little, pink, 8" by 6" notebook that was only about half an inch thick. On the cover, "Pamela" was written in loose cursive and little hearts had been scribbled in red magic marker.

Suddenly the book felt very hot in my hand and I dropped it back into the box with the startling realization that that was my mother's diary. I stared at it in the box in stark contrast against the dull brown paper covered textbooks.

My fingers were itching to pick it up and read it but I felt guilty about reading my mom's private diary.

Although…if she hadn't been so unforthcoming about her childhood maybe I wouldn't have to snoop…

I bit my lip, weighing the morality of the situation against my curiosity. In one quick motion, before I could talk myself out of it, I picked up the diary and turned it over in my hands.

Out of the side of the pink-colored pages, something was sticking out.

'At least I can say this part fell out,' I thought to myself, justifying as I pulled the papers from the diary.

It looked like a newspaper article that had been yellowed over the years from the heat of the attic.

'Tragic House fire kills Amber McClain (18) and father Marcus McClain (40) on September 24th, 1984. It has been confirmed that the fire was started within the house and although both bodies were charred beyond recognition, several injuries on the teen girl are present. Police are considering ruling this a domestic violence gone wrong. A funeral is to be held for the teen girl on September 30th, and many of her classmates and teachers are scheduled to attend as well as other family members such as half-sister, Pamela (9) who will be speaking at her sister's funeral…'

That took me aback a little.

My mom had always assured me that she was an only child, just like my dad. Why now do I hear that she had a sister who was killed in a house fire?

Why wouldn't she have told me about that?

Next to the article was a grainy picture of who I assumed to be her sister. Her hair was pulled into a high pony tail and she didn't smile for the school photographer. I couldn't help but smile a little given that in a that a large majority of my school pictures I'm doing the exact same thing.

She looked familiar.

I spent several minutes staring at the fuzzy image of the dark-haired girl in a ripped Guns N Roses t-shirt.

'Maybe she only looks familiar because she's my mom's sister,' I considered, but, deep down, I knew that wasn't true. Judging by the lightness of her eyes against the black and white background, I guessed that the only traits my mom and her sister actually shared had been a pointed nose and aqua colored eyes. Which they must have gotten from their dad; the grandfather I had never met.

'But how do I know her,' I thought, 'I mean, it's not like I was even born yet, I mean, my mom was only nine, when she died…'

That did it.

That clicked.

When she died! This girl, she's dead, that means the only way I could know her is if she was a ghost.

Amber McClain.

Ember McClain. Which, I guess made sense given the fact that she died in a fire.

I sat back for a minute, absorbing, and taking in the implications.

My mom has been lying to me for 15 years. But, more importantly, Ember McClain is my freaking aunt!

Ember is my aunt.

I have no idea how I am supposed to react to that knowledge. How do you react to the knowledge that you suddenly have an aunt, a ghost aunt, that you didn't know existed who, in one year, put Danny under a love spell, tried to control the world (multiple times), put all of our parents under a spell and used them to (once again) try and take over the world, and removed all the men from town.

Although, now that I know we're related, I'm actually a little impressed.

My mom and Ember are nothing alike, but, the more I thought about it, the more I can see the resemblance between Ember's personality and my own.

Still not sure what to think about that.

"Samantha," my mom called from downstairs making me jump.

'Shit!' I thought, rapidly putting the books back in the box.

"Are you up there?" she called again.

"Yeah, mom!" I replied as I heard her heels on the steps.

Impulsively, I decided not to put the diary back, instead, putting with all the other stuff I collected so that I could easily sneak it out.

I hefted the heavy book box back to the top of the pile and sat in front of the picture boxes like I had been there all along. I gently slipped the diary into one of the picture boxes and closed the lid, just as my mom's orange head bobbed up the last of the steps.

"Samantha," she blinked, "What are you doing up here?"

"Oh, I have a project for school where we're supposed to collect a bunch of pictures and do a presentation about our family," I replied smoothly.

"Oh," my mom said simply, "Are you finding anything?"

"I think so," I told her, picking up the photo box that was concealing the diary and the other photos I had gathered, "Is this all of the photos, or do you have some somewhere else?"

"Oh, no, that's all of them, you know that," she told me but I could easily read the look on her face. She was lying. And I'll bet money that her hidden stash of photos has something to do with the sister she never told me she had.

"I know, I just thought you might have moved some of them downstairs," I lied.

"Oh," she nodded; looking behind me—not subtly at all—to make sure her secret box had not been disturbed.

"Are you okay, mom?" I asked her as a way of throwing any suspicion off of me.

"What? Oh, fine, honey. I'm just fine," she snapped out of her trance, "Is that the only box you need?" she asked.

"Yep. I've got all I need, right here."