"Ghosts fill my head with such rotten things, and with the loneliness that the cold air brings. "
Constance is the daughter of a nurse working in Beacon Hills hospital and surgeon killed and turned into vampire during the Civil War. Growing in the mothers womb, incessantly draining blood and life force from her.
Frail human body wasn't able to feed itself and disgraceful fetus inside. She ripped up her way to the outside world leaving a cold exsanguine corpse. Constance spent most of her life among the dead people rather than the living. After the unclear death of her mother, moved with undead father to a house on the outskirts of Beacon Hills, near the cemetery. Little miss spent lingering days surrounded by dusty porcelain dolls and quiet whispers coming out from coffins standing in the shadow of father's funeral home.
Dim interior of the church, saturated with scent of resin and incense along with a bleak morgue were like a second home for her. As the years passed, stifled whispers became louder, shadows dancing in the darkness were her imaginary friends. She couldn't see them, not yet, but they were around her. She heard them, their laughter and lifeless weep.
When the school started it wasn't easy to pretend that everything was as it supposed to be. The father who never leaves the house before nightfall.
A listless girl, sitting alone on the playground and whispering to thin air. She whispered, and they listened and answered.
They came at night. Under the starry sky slipping into the deepest dreams.
Hollow hideous faces and dreadful dead eyes like bottomless ominous wells. Forgotten souls, seeking the way to the living world through the veil. You screamed and yelled, but they didn't leave your head. Night turns into the light of day and they were still here.
Apparitions clung to her like a second shadow, finding a link between the world beyond our existence.
Since childhood Constance was part of the supernatural world, spending every day of her life among disembodied voices, dim silhouettes, but with every passing day their presence was overwhelming. Their voices drowned out her thoughts and their emotions were stronger than her own. Some restless souls,were only trying to get attention, others spirits were more insidious. Stronger entities were able to take control over bones and muscles, turning her own flesh, into shell for desperate souls. Constance was an open book, attracting death and the dead, like a beacon luring moths to light.
When the spirit possessed her, teenager was like a puppet in its ghostly paws. It was not easy to explain why the girl roamed aimlessly forests surrounding the town, like a lunatic lost in torpor. Aggressive behavior towards classmates, bouts of uncontrolled laughter and shrill cries of despair for no apparent reason. Reasons not visible to human eyes. It was easier to pretend, blame putative mental illness.
Bizarre behavior, personality changes, unclear screams, the voices in her head or delirium caused by psychosis was more rational excuse for people around her. Indeed she still could tell the truth, although it would sound like nonsensical delusions of lunatic. Constance seek refuge from demons swirling around her like a flock of black ravens.
And they found a place for her. Behind the bare stone walls of Eichen House. The grim place full of loony and sane forgotten by outside world beings. Lunatics screamed lost in a psychotic rage, drooling and muttering, wandering through empty corridors in a catatonic torpor. Constance tried to find her sanctuary, but faithful like dogs phantoms didn't leave her hospital bed. Padded walls weren't able to muffle heartrending screams and restraints were too weak to hold her down.