Violet knew about the ghosts in her house from the moment she moved in, most of them were friendly enough, others liked to cause trouble.
The twins, for example, loved to get Violet in trouble with her mom. They'd break her things and Vivian would only see a broken vase next to an eight year old Violet, who else would she have blamed?
Ben didn't believe Violet about the ghosts either, instead he said it was a way for her to cope with them moving all the way across the country. "She'll grow out of it," he'd assure his wife before going off every morning to 'work'.
Violet stayed in her room most of the time, she didn't make many friends at school, not even when she talked about how scary her Halloween costume had been last year. None of the children at school seemed very impressed with her zombie impressions either.
In fact, there was only one person who seemed to like her doings. She had met him when she moved from Boston.
He had been sitting by the window in her room when she moved in. He didn't seem to care when she walked in holding a box of her belongings, so she spoke up, "Do you live here too?"
His head snapped to her, a look of surprise on his face. He had blond wavy hair, and eyes darker than most of Violets clothes.
"I'm Violet," she said. "Mom said this was my new room." When he still didn't say anything, Violet dropped the box at her feet, rattling the things in the box. "Are you like the twins downstairs? They scared my moms dog and one of them tried pulling my hair. They're not very nice are they?"
The boy with the blond hair let his lips turn up slightly, "No, they're not very nice."
"I told them to go away, but you can stay if you want," she smiled.
"You weren't scared of them?" the boy quirked an eyebrow and began to walk towards her.
Violet raised her chin, "I'm not scared of anything," she claimed with a grin.
"You know," the boy towered over her, "We're dead."
He expected her to at least look taken back, but then again she was small. Did she even know what being dead meant? The little girl with the light brown hair and curious eyes only smiled wider.
"Want to hear my roar?" she asked excitedly.
"Your what?" the boy was confused by then. Why wasn't this little girl running from him? Or at least calling her mom and telling her about the strange man in her room? She had met the twins, which were the creepiest little shits Tate had ever met, so why wasn't she crying yet? And the biggest question, why was she able to see them?
"My- roooaaar," she responded, raising her tiny hands to add effect. Her gumdrop teeth were bared to Tate, trying to look intimidating, but only succeeding at looking adorable.
Tate couldn't help but grin, "That's the best roar I've ever heard."
"Scary?" Violet giggled.
"Very scary," Tate agreed, though he didn't know why. He didn't have to stand there and humor the kid, but he had to admit, she was cute. "And that's coming from a ghost himself."
Violet looked pleased with herself. "I was a ghost for Halloween one time, and not the ones with the white sheets with holes in them, and not like you or the twins. I was a scary ghost, had bloody clothes and everything."
Tate wasn't sure how he felt about that, but he still smiled and crouched down to level with her. "You think I'm not a scary ghost?"
"Maybe if you had more blood, and you didn't look so pretty. Scary things can't be pretty."
Tate nearly laughed out loud at that, "You think I'm a pretty ghost?"
Violet shrugged, "Don't you think so?"
Tate almost answered with, "Of course I know I'm pretty," but didn't want her to think he was so self aware of his looks. Instead he smiled tentatively at her and looked inside her box. "What do you have in here anyways?" he asked her.
Violet grinned, "I have books, wanna see? My mom bought me Dracula before we left Boston."
Boston, Tate thought, is a long way to come from.
"What's your name anyways?" Violet asked him, tilting her head to the side as she handed him the hard covered book.
"Tate," he answered, taking the book from her hands.
"Tate," she echoed. "Tate. That's a weird name... I like it."
"You're a weird little girl," he retorted, and she began to smile again. "I like it too."