The sun hung high in the sky, the clouds drifting slowly away with the soft breeze. High pitched giggles and excited squeals filled the air as Claire and Tom Williams ran around the playground, wild grins lighting up their faces. The seven year old girl sprinted after her five year old brother, coming dangerously close to tripping several times. Their thin and scrawny limbs flew all over the place in a blur as they bolted past.
"I'm gonna get you, Tommyyy!" Claire howled, adopting her very best monster impression, setting off another set of shrieks from the little boy. Her dark hair flipped around in every direction, ending up in her eyes, mouth, and her whole face. The moment Tom looked behind him at Claire, his tiny body crashed into a pair of long legs. Claire skidded to a stop, half way between laughing and wheezing.
"Woah there! What do we have here?" Richard Williams beamed at his son, lifting him up onto his shoulders.
"A monster was after me!" Tom pointed his finger at his sister, his blue eyes wide.
"Really? What did it look like?"
"It was wearing a dress and had really, realllyyy long hair!"
Claire grinned ear to ear, pushing onto her tip toes and wiggling her fingers at Tom. "Yeah? It must have been a really pretty monster then?"
Tom giggled loudly and shook his head adamantly, his short, blonde hair flying around. "Nope! It kind of looked you!"
"Oi! What do you mea-"
Claire was interrupted by a booming laugh, soon followed by high pitched sniggers. She looked up at them both, scrunching up her face, narrowing her hazel eyes at them. "Dad- Tom! Stop laughing!"
Elizabeth Williams strolled around the park, looking for her family. "Claire, Tom? We'd better get going, we've got to get back to make dinner!" She called for her children, finally spotting them by a tree. She ambled over to them, giving Richard a quick peck on the lips.
"Aaaaw… Can't we stay a little longer?" Tom pouted, forcing tears into his eyes, making them look extra glassy.
"No, Tom. You promised." Liz shook a finger, and reached for Claire's hand. "Come on, let's go."
Claire was about to reach for her mother's hand, when she saw a shadow shift behind her.
"Claire?"
ooOOOooo
"-Claire!" A fifteen year old Tom snapped his fingers in Claire's face, startling her out of la-la land. "We're here. Hurry up, or John's gonna melt your face off with his death glare." Claire blinked owlishly at her brother, and seeing her awake, Tom retracted his head from inside of the car. Their step father, John Thompson, was notorious for his glare; it was one that could send people to their graves if it were possible. He was also known to be a huge dick, but that wasn't the point- or maybe it was… Never mind.
The seventeen year old yawned, her hand flying to her mouth, and stumbled out the car after her brother. They'd been in that tiny car for enough hours to drive a person crazy.
As soon as Claire looked up, a sharp gasp escaped her lips.
"Wow."
As much as the house was beautiful, it was also goddamn creepy. Claire and Tom stood staring at it on the front lawn, not quite knowing what to think. It was certainly a stark contrast to their previous house.
'Big' would have been a very big understatement; it was freaking massive. Rather than a house, it was more like a mini mansion. The Victorian building was very much isolated from the rest of the neighbourhood, the iron gates shielding it off from the rest of the street. From a distance, it sort of looked like a giant doll house, but standing there, it looked nothing short of menacing. The thin branches of the trees twisted around the walls, the bricks a faded red. The stain glass windows glinted eerily in the morning sun. It probably didn't help that it was in the darkest corner of the darkest edge of the street. The house towered over them in the worst way, all the shadows were cast in the wrong places.
It just seemed… off.
"I'm getting some serious horror movie vibes right now." Tom inched closer to his sister, hiding behind her as if someone were watching them- though it wasn't doing much, since he was over a head taller than her.
"Really? It kind of looks like a haunted Barbie house." Claire countered.
They stared at the house for a while longer, before a deafening shout burst their eardrums.
"Claire, Thomas! Go pick your rooms. Your things will be in the living room." Their step-father yelled from somewhere inside the house.
The two shared a glance before darting off into the house.
Nobody noticed the girl in the window.
ooOOOoo
Violet was sat by the window ledge in her room when they'd arrived. She got curious, but then she remembered the tall man who'd come to see the house a couple of weeks before. The man had stared at everything blankly, offering grunts in reply as that Marcy woman rattled off about light fixtures and tiles. Hallie was in her arms, yapping her face off, as usual.
Violet thought that maybe she'd feel different once she was dead, but honestly, barely anything had changed. Besides the fact that there was nothing to do most of the time and she couldn't leave the property, she still felt like the miserable little girl she was beforehand. When she wasn't with her family, she sat in her room, thinking about what could have been.
She didn't want to die. None of them did.
It was a curse of constantly repeating the same day over and over and over. It was a continuous cycle that never ended. She'd even wrote a book at some point, trying to break it. She'd already read the entire library, so why not add another to the collection? She was also pretty sure he'd read it too by now.
During the first year, he used slip these little notes under the door. Little things that made the corners of her lips involuntarily twitch upwards. That is, before her gut wrenched, remembering who, exactly, was writing these. She used listened to his cries, and a lot of the time she'd cried alongside with him. But as time went on, his little notes became threaded with a bitterness that made Violet cringe. His cries eventually quietened, replaced by the occasional shout and yell.
Each one was a stab to her heart.
She loved him, yes, but the walls between them seemed to wash everything out.
So when she set her eyes on the new family, Violet felt a spark of hope ignite in her chest.
Maybe she wouldn't be alone anymore. Violet quickly shook her head at the thought. She needed to get this family out before the house sank its claws into them.
Her eyes zoned in on the two teens. They both looked around her age. The man- their Dad? Had disappeared into the house the moment he'd gotten out the car.
"-pick your rooms. Your things will be in the living room." A sudden shout had Violet almost toppling off her seat. When she looked out the window again, the two had already gone.
ooOOOoo
Despite it being one creepy ass house, it didn't stop the thrumming excitement that came with exploring a new home. Tom had already found his perfect room- the one closest to the kitchen. Tom quickly claimed the room as his and flopped on the bed, Claire leaning against the door frame.
The two were silent for a moment, staring at each other.
Tom heaved a sigh, and broke their brief staring contest.
"When do you think we can see Mum?"
"No clue, but we need to check the bus timetables to the hospital first." Claire eyed her brother, taking note of his clenched fists and tense jaw. "Still no Wi-Fi though, so I'll probably have to ask the neighbours."
"Okay." A thick silence filtered into the air, and after a while, Tom met her burning gaze.
"We'll be okay, you know."
Claire huffed, a sardonic smile pulling at her lips. "I sure hope so. Anyway, I've got to pick out a room!" She clapped her hands on her thighs, a small but genuine grin seeping in, and slipped through the door and into the hallway.
"Scream if you see a ghost!" Tom called after her.
"Will do!"
The soft thumps of Claire's feet echoed throughout the house as she clambered up the stairs. The more she look around, the more she questioned how on earth they could afford it. With her Mother now in hospital, a 7,500 sqft house didn't exactly seem to fit in their budget plan. Or maybe John was just a secret billionaire in hiding- not that he'd ever plan on sharing it without Mum around.
After wandering around for a while, peering into every room she came across, Claire eventually came to a stop in front of a wonderfully mysterious door. Maybe this would be the door that would lead her to a majestic new bedroom. She reached out and tentatively turned the handle, gently pushing the door open.
"Nope! Nopity nope nope nope!" Claire promptly slammed the door shut and sped across the hall. She'd seen her fair share of horror films, and she'd seen enough to know what happens in ominous, old and dusty nurseries. She could have sworn she'd seen the rocking chair sway in the corner. To add fuel to the fire? There was no breeze in the room.
Claire had to physically brush away the eerie feeling of being watched, a shudder rattling down her spine. She found herself standing in front of a similar looking door to the previous- not that it was exactly hard to, seeing as every other door on that floor were practical carbon copies of each other.
She grabbed the handle and shoved the door open.
ooOOOoo
The door swung open with a resounding thwack, bouncing off the wall behind it. Violet was shocked out of her skin, this time actually falling off her seat. She would've thought that as a ghost, she wouldn't be as startled as easily.
Guess not.
The girl she'd seen earlier stood at the door, a look of awe seeping into her eyes as she looked around the room. Violet stared shamelessly at her. She was very pretty, that much could be said.
Jealousy trickled in at the back of her throat when she realised Tate would've been smitten with her; maybe he already was.
A waterfall of dark hair cascaded down her back, her bright hazel eyes were framed by thick lashes. She watched as a manic smile stretched the girl's rosy lips.
Violet briefly pondered on how she could get her lips to look like that.
"Yup. Definitely this one." The girl smiled goofily, walking around the room. She let her fingers trail on the bed sheets as she passed Violet.
Violet blinked. British?
"Yes, definitely this one." Violet mimicked her accent, though she probably ended up sounding more like a pompous ass than a sophisticated brit.
"Éclair!" A mop blonde hair popped out from the door way- right in Violet's face. She yelped before falling back onto the carpet again.
Goddammit.
"Let's go explore!" The blonde one came into full view, towering over her.
Claire swivelled on her heel, facing Tom. "Shouldn't we unpack first?"
"What, and miss out on looking around a possibly haunted house? I had more faith in you, Sis."
"Fine. What do you think of this room? Preetty cool if I say so myself." She did a little twirl, opening her arms.
"Yeah, yeah. Now let's go!" Tom darted forward and latched onto her wrist. With a rumble of fast paced steps, Violet was left alone again.
"Well, they seem nice." Violet nodded to herself, standing up and brushing the dust off her dress. Very British.
ooOOOoo
Tate leaned his back on the wall beside the Violet's door, throwing a small book from hand to hand. His eyes followed Claire and Tom as they dashed off to an unseen part of the house. He'd been tailing John around the house before he left, presumably to get beer if the random mutterings were any indication. He had also been busying himself with rummaging through the new comers' boxes earlier, and all he could establish was that they were either broke, or they'd forgotten to bring half their stuff here. The girl's, Claire, as it read on the box, was full of books, art supplies and photo albums- of which he may or may not have taken one of the smaller ones to investigate. Though when Tate had looked into Tom's boxes, he didn't even try to understand what the odd devices and what seemed to be weaponized Gameboys were used for.
Come to think of it, what year was it? 2017? Damn, he'd be what... 40 right now?
Tate glanced at Violet's door again before shoving the little photo album into his back pocket, pushing off the wall to follow the current living occupants.
They seemed interesting enough.