Someone I hold very close to my heart once told me that time doesn't run in a single straight line. The moments we spend on this earth don't fall from one event to the other like dominoes. Our moments fall around us like snow. Like confetti. We are surrounded by everything and everyone we've ever met, ever loved, constantly. We are never truly alone. Especially when we're alone.

I try to keep those words around me whenever I feel my mind drifting back to Hill House and my time there. It is still a physical embodiment for grief and loss for my family. And yes, fear too. Our moments there did not fall as gracefully as my younger sister wished. They slid down around us in thick, cancerous, matted sin. It imbedded itself. It lingers, and it will continue to linger long after I am gone. Long after all of my siblings are gone.

But when I think of the house; of its walls and its grounds, I don't feel the same resentment I did when I first put pen to paper all those years ago. I feel acceptance. I accept it for what it once was and what it is. I accept it for what my Mother and Father tried to make it, and I accept it for what my sister Nell would have wanted to be.

And I hope, against everything that has happened, that it will accept me as a survivor in the end-

"Dad?"

Steve Crain lifted his eyes from the monitor of his laptop and blinked tiredly. His fingers relaxed from their position, poised over the keys to tap out his story. Standing in the doorway was his daughter, backpack over one shoulder and a mug in her hand. Stretching out his back, he yawned sharply and took off his glasses.

"You okay Nora?"

Eleanor Olivia Crain nodded her head, and let her backpack thud to the ground with a simple shrug of her shoulder. She wandered over to his desk and set the blue mug on the stained coaster and dropped in to the wooden chair at his side.

"I brought you a coffee. It got quiet in here for longer than twenty minutes so I knew it was needed."

Steve huffed out a tired laugh and nodded to her in thanks, bringing the coffee to his lips to sip at it.

"How was school?"
Nora shrugged her shoulders in the nonchalant way that only teenagers could. Steve stared at his daughter over the curve of his mug, a brow raised. Nora held his gaze for a second before she sighed and her shoulders dropped.
"It was just pointless. Mr Arnold made me stay during lunch again because I didn't do the chemistry work."
"And you're complaining about that?" He put the lid on his pen and dropped it back in to the coffee pot he used as a pencil holder. "You didn't do the homework. What else were you expecting to happen?"
"I know Dad. I know." Nora rested her elbow on the table and perched her chin on her shut fist. "It's just bull."

Steve smiled. It was a smile he found only his first born could really bring about. She reminded him so much of Leigh that it was uncanny sometimes. She had her eyes and her nose and her penchant for being sarcastic to the wrong people. But the one thing that was different was her hair. It was not her Mother's blonde. Her hair was as dark and as curled as any other Crain girl. He was surprised it hadn't skipped a generation entirely.

He reached across and squeezed her hand.
"Well you're done for the holidays now. You don't have to bother about Mr Arnold again until January." He paused, realising what his wife would be imploring him to do if she was present.
"But you're doing your homework."
"Dad—"
"I mean it."

Picking at her chipped nail polish, Nora's eyes settled on her Father's laptop screen.
"Are you nearly finished?"
With another strained sigh, Steve picked up his glasses and scanned through the last paragraph he had written. He took another mouthful of coffee.
"Nearly. Tying up final threads."
"Can I read some of it?"
He felt his eyes shut for a for a few seconds, that same guilt twisted in his stomach and crept its way to his heart.
"No, Nora." He mumbled as he pressed the save icon. "Not yet."

His daughter furrowed her brow and leant forward in her chair.
"I've read some of the other ones. Dad you said that now I'm older I could read all of them. I've just finished Alcatraz and if you're writing a sequel to it I could start Hill House and by the time I've finished that you might have published this one—"
"No." Steve shut his laptop off with finality and his daughter leant back in her chair with a defeated drop of her shoulders. Steve slid his laptop in to its case and ran a hand over his forehead.

"No, Nora. Not now. Not yet."
"Dad it's just a book. It won't scare me. None of your stories scare me anymore. They haven't for years."

"Go and pack. Now you're finished with school we need to make our way to your Aunt Shirl's." It was a blunt deflection, and he regretted it as soon as it left his lips. There was no response from his daughter, and he could tell that she was staring at the side of his head indignantly.
Steve just focused on packing his writing things in to his leather satchel. "This'll be fun. All your cousins will be there and we'll spend Christmas together as a big family."
"Dad." Nora stood, picking her school bag up from the floor. The disappointment was still drifting in her eyes, but she didn't let it overflow.

"I'm not Em. You don't have to tell me how magical this is going to be. It's going to be just as crowded as it is every year. Aunt Shirley will find something to argue about with Aunt Theo, Mom'll have too much wine. Like every year. And you'll sit in the corner with Uncle Luke looking pissed off and promising to never do Christmas as one family ever again."

Steve straightened, tucking his glasses in to his jumper. Yesterday his wife had packed their other kids in to her car and had headed to his sisters to get things sorted. Now Steve would be packing the small mountain of presents for his siblings, his nieces and nephews and his own kids in to the back of the car and make the drive with his eldest. If he wasn't careful that drive would be in teenage, hormonal silence.

So instead, he walked over and pressed a kiss to his daughter's forehead.
"Don't be a smartass, Eleanor."
A wisp of a smile twitched at her lips as she looked up at him.
"I'm right though. Aren't I? You and Uncle Luke will make your way through another bottle of champagne."
Steve tried to look down at her with a disapproving expression, but it soon crumbled in to an affectionate laugh. He tapped her nose.

"Go. Pack."

With a smile, she turned and ran back towards the stairs. Steve listened to the footsteps on the landing above him. It was only when he heard the clunk of a door shutting that he allowed himself to exhale.

The walls of their house groaned in complaint to the bitter cold outside. If he listened hard enough he would hear himself creaking from time to time. Walking back to his desk, he picked up his coffee.

The mug had been a Father's Day gift from years ago. When Nora had barely been three. The words 'World's Okay-est Dad' had faded from overuse. It had been something Leigh had initially laughed at when he had opened it. She had shifted their toddler on her knee and told him that Nora had allegedly picked it out herself. He tapped his thumb against the china in thought. Tired grey eyes drifted down to the picture frames on his desk. Most were of his children, one was of his wife on their wedding day. In the centre of the row there was a picture of his sisters. All in the bridesmaid dresses Leigh had chosen. He had plucked it from their wedding album because the three of them looked so happy. Shirley had a slightly tipsy smile on her face. Even Theodora looked mildly glad to be there. But the main reason he had set it down on his desk was for his youngest sister. Nellie. Barely 19 at the time of his wedding, grinning in the middle with all the happiness and joy in the world.

Steve stopped tapping his mug. With one hand, he reached out and took a smaller frame from the corner of his desk. A faded, old photograph of his parents. He let his thumb brush against the glass above his Mother's face.
"I know you'd probably tell me she's old enough." He mumbled, perching on the edge of his desk. The old oak creaked beneath him.

"Hell, she's older than I was when we were there. But I can't. I can't. I can't shatter her image of our family. Of the two of you. Of Nellie. She's so happy she's named after her that if I let her know what happened I'm frightened that she'll jump to the same conclusions I did—"
"Dad! Michael left his toothbrush!"
The innocent shout from upstairs stopped him in his tracks. He was talking to himself again. It was said that was the first sign of madness. [The irony was not lost on him.] Without moving his eyes from the image of his parents, he shouted back.
"Well put it in your bag! You can tell your brother he's an idiot when you see him."

"Cool!"

Silence once more. Steve listened to the grandfather clock in the corner of his study ticking away. An anchor; if anything, when he needed moments to think. He looked at his Father's smiling eyes, his lips pressed against Olivia's cheek. They were young in the photo, clearly in the first year or so of their relationship.
"I understand now, Dad. I do."

Nora jumped down the last step on the stairs, duffle bag in one hand and backpack in the other. She had thought that she was too old for the excitement of the holiday season by now. But the more the thought of being finished with school sunk in, the more she could feel excitement bursting like little fireworks beneath her skin. Dropping her bags, she sat down on the bottom step and pulled on her boots. Christmas meant the beauty of gorging herself on her Aunt Shirley's cooking. It meant watching as her younger siblings and her cousins threw snowballs at one another and the smug bliss of them all finally being beaten by their Aunt Theo. But what she looked forward to the most, was sitting with her Uncle Luke by the fire and just talking. It may have had something to do with the fact that he let her share his whiskey and coke, but since he had left their spare room and started out on his own, she had missed their time together.

Finishing her laces, she stood and took her winters coat from the peg near the door. As she was buttoning it up, she heard her Father locking up his study down the hall.
"Ready?" Steve asked as he lifted the handle of his suitcase.
"Yeah." She said with a nod, stuffing her phone in to her pocket.

Doing a once over of all the windows, Steve shrugged on his thick coat.
"Right." He snatched his car keys from the pot.
"Let's rock and roll, kiddo."
"Dad." Nora stopped in her tracks, watching her Father step out in to the cold. "Dad don't say that."
"Why not?"
"Just don't." She muttered as she felt the cold bite at her cheeks. "You're nearly 50."
"I'm 44." Came the tutted response as he locked the front door. "And I'll have you know when I was your age I was the coolest kid this side of Nevada." He was doing it deliberately now, finger guns and all. Nora rolled her eyes to the high heavens and opened the passenger door.
"Dad. Stop. I'm begging you."

For a few minutes they sat in silence as the car defrosted. The heater whirred as the mist on the windscreen slowly faded away to clarity. It was moments like these that he used to treasure with his Father. Just the two of them in the car making their way in the unknown. With his hands motionless on the wheel, he broke their comfortable silence.

"Any parties I need to know about?"

Nora looked up from her text message, blinking at the question's suddenness.
"I don't think so. Maybe at New Years. I don't know whether Maddie is having another party this year."
He nodded, finally turning the engine on. As he looked over his shoulder and backed out of the drive he spoke in a strained voice.
"Run it past Mom. Should be okay. And if you're going to steal beer from the cooler just ask and I'll get you a crate."

He glanced over in time to catch her guilty expression. He just shook his head with a knowing smile.

A couple of miles and a few badly sung Beatles songs later, Nora turned her attention away from the rain hammering against the car windows and hugged a knee to her chest.

"Dad?"
Steve, glasses on, kept his eyes on the road ahead. The wipers flicked back and forth against the spray.
"Yeah?"
"Why can't I read it?"
For a moment the only noise between them was the ticking of the cars indicator as Steve changed lanes.

"Nora, I wrote the first half of that book when I was the same age as you. My English teacher asked us to write an essay on our most vivid memories. Some trash about sophisticated writing. What I handed in at the end of term was barely a chapter of what I eventually published. He failed me. Only fail I ever got at high school. He said he had asked for reflection and I had written fiction."

Nora listened. Occasionally a passing streetlight cast her face in a bright white glow.

"But it is fiction. All of your books are fiction, Dad." She frowned, the radio fuzzed in and out of clarity in the rain.

"Ghost stories. You said they were ghost stories."
"They are." Steve nodded, tapping the wheel with one finger to steady himself. "The Queen Mary, Alcatraz. All ghost stories that people have given me and I've elaborated on."

His daughter was looking concerningly close to causing an argument. Her leg dropped back in to the foot-well and she nudged her head against the glass of the window.

"Then what's the big deal?"
"I wrote a lot of things in that book that I can never take back." Perhaps he had said it too sharply. Too quickly. Because his daughter turned her face back to the rain and bit at the skin on her lip.

His hands tightened on the wheel and he squinted through the rain at the break lights of the car in front, forcing himself through his guilt.

"That book is based on my own experiences. And the experiences of your grandparents, all your Aunts and your Uncle. I didn't know what I was doing back then. I was some stupid 23 year old kid. I wrote a lot of things about that house that…" He trailed off. The windscreen wipers whirred mechanically. Shaking his head he reached over to turn the radio up a little. A Bing Crosby Christmas song.

Setting his hand back on the wheel, he slowed in the traffic with a sigh.

"One day, Eleanor." He promised as his daughter turned away from him in her seat and chased rain drops down the glass with her finger.

The old timey Christmas song drifted through the car, and Steve let himself focus on the lyrics and the memories stitched within their melodies. His mind flitted back to the treasured Christmases with his family before Hill House. Being lifted up by his Father to put the final touches on the tree. And then to the disjointed Christmases in the custody of Aunt Janet, the hollowness he felt. The false smiles he put on for the twins.

When Nora Craine saw the figure standing at the edge of the road she thought nothing of it. The rain drops on the window made it so hard to get a good view that it simply looked like somen0e waiting to cross the road. If she had a clear view, she would have seen the woman's neck was bent at an unnatural angle. She would have seen that she was in a night gown and nothing more, and that the woman's eyes were fixed on her and her alone. But Nora didn't see any of this, she just listened to her Father's soft humming and the rain pattering against the roof and let her eyes slide shut.