Their furniture was strange, but not more so than the gay couple's from two years earlier. Tate stood amongst their packing boxes, running his fingers curiously over the unfamiliar technology, flipping briefly through photo albums and cd cases.

He knew there were three of them, could see their names scrawled clearly on the boxes in harsh black nikko. 'Ben's' belongings were quality – trappings of a man that cared for his appearance and demonstrating his wealth to others. 'Viv' – probably Vivien – had some fascination with organics and skincare and designer homewares, which Tate skimmed over without interest.

The boxes marked 'Violet' gave him a thrill of delight when he found them. Who was this person that listened to music religiously and whose clothes didn't look like the girls that walked past the house on their way to school? He studied her books with building excitement. He knew that she was upstairs with her parents, could hear them noisily unpacking furniture, and he itched to go and look at them – but he held himself back, savoring the rare moments of mystery that were such a treat in this stagnant mansion. Thaddeus had already seen her, when she chased the Harmon's dog into the basement – he told Tate that her blood smelt like lilacs.

'I will say this: he has impeccable dress sense.' Tate glanced over at Chad, who was studying Ben Harmon's folded wardrobe critically.

'If you take one shirt from that suitcase I'll cut your hands off,' said Moira without much venom. She was occupied with looking at the Harmons' collection of framed family photos with interest.

'Oh look, Moira's found a new man to eat,' said Chad in a sing-song lilt. Tate dismissed the two of them in bored disgust. Their banter had never held much interest for him.

He was tired of resisting impulse, and in a moment he was standing in his old bedroom, watching a blonde-haired girl tacking posters to her wall.

He studied her ravenously. Slim frame, soft hands. She moved nicely, with an easy nonchalance that he liked. Her clothes were strange: thin tank top, oversized sweater, baggy jeans. She was younger than he had been: barely out of childhood, a girl that hadn't yet learned how to be pretty or delicate or do things with her hair. She wasn't threatening in the slightest, but she didn't have that misty-eyed dopiness of the girls he remembered from school.

He watched her moving through her things, unpacking clothes, piling cds next to the nightstand, hanging a large collection of hats on the antique coat stand that he'd once used to make a bloody Halloween scarecrow to frighten his mother.

At one point he saw her lift a box from a suitcase and, after looking at it deliberately for a moment, hide it in her drawers under some skirts. He reached forward to examine it when she turned around, but Moira was suddenly in front of his hand.

He pulled back in irritation at this private little hour's rude interruption.

"I wasn't stealing anything," he snarled.

"I know," said Moira quietly, "Your mother wants you. She signaled me from her window."

"What does she want?" Tate glowered.

"How should I know?" Moira ran an aged finger over the wooden chest of drawers and scowled at the dirt on it. "This room will need such an unfortunate amount of dusting. How you ever enjoyed it being so dank and dim is beyond me. Go downstairs, Master Tate, your mother is sending Addie over to frighten Madam. She'll want to talk to you in the hall."

Tate looked back at Violet, who had settled on her bed to sort through her laundry.

"I'll watch out for her until you get back. Nobody's going to bother them, it's only their second night in the house. They'll let them get a little settled first, I suspect." Moira gave him a knowing look from her one good eye, and with a sigh Tate disappeared to wait for his mother in the downstairs hall.

She was standing in the shadows by the door, watching Adelaide play with one of the Harmons' dog toys on the floor. Tate stood as far from her as he could while still remaining in the same room.

Constance glanced up and smiled warmly, holding out her arms. "My boy,' she said in her most affectionate drawl. Tate twitched backward, although she was obviously too far to reach him from where she stood, and Constance dropped her arms with only the briefest look of hurt.

"You've seen the new family, I assume," she continued. "I'm concerned about the others. They did get so worked up after you killed the gays. I fear that the bloodlust has entered their souls."

Tate was silent, refusing to encourage her by word or look.

"The Harmons are a promising set. Have you seen all their elegant things? I've a mind to redecorate my own house, so to speak. This Harmon woman has some delightful taste. Her silverware – not to mention that jewellery-" Constance touched her own ears absently.

"Is there a point to this?" Tate said coldly. Addie giggled at him from the floor and Tate winked back at his sister.

"Yes. I want to keep them around for a time – a little longer than the gays, if at all possible – until they get boring. I came to ask you to integrate yourself into their lives, so that you can keep a better eye on them. If the other spirits see you so connected to them they might leave them alone for a short while."

"How do you want me to do that exactly?"

"Ben Harmon is a psychologist- psycho something. Give him an interesting case to work on so he'll keep you on as a regular. I'll call him up and book you an appointment tomorrow."

"Fine," said Tate tiredly, "whatever you like. May I go?"

"Just a moment," said Constance, "Addie-" she said to the girl on the floor, "go in and frighten the Harmon woman for a moment, there's a girl. I'll be with you in a second." Addie stood, brushing the dirt from her dress, and skipped over to hug Tate. He held tightly for a moment before letting her go. She stepped silently out of the hall and through into the kitchen where Vivian Harmon was scraping the walls.

"Tate- my boy-" Constance began, her voice softer, less forced.

Tate stepped further into the shadows. "I'm not your boy. I'll do as you ask to keep the peace. Other than that, leave me alone."

Constance sighed, and then straightened as she heard Vivian's scream of fright. "That's my cue," she drawled, touching up her hair. "I'll call Ben Harmon tomorrow. Take care of yourself. Adelaide," she called out louder, and stepped out of the hall.

She always left a bad taste in his mouth somehow. Reluctantly, Tate decided not to return to Violet's room that night, but to savor it for the morning. Grabbing a pack of cards from one of the packing boxes downstairs, he went back to the basement to play 500 with Thaddeus.

~:~:~

Ben Harmon bored Tate the moment he met him. Open face, sympathetic eyes, quiet, fatherly concern – Tate was a first-class liar, and he took it as a personal insult to be lied to by an amateur.

"So Tate, these..fantasies..started two years ago, three years ago, what?"

"Two years ago," Tate replied. He settled into the familiar stance he adopted when storytelling. "I prepare for the noble war."

He pictured himself from another's perspective, which always allowed him to detach from the lie. To make the memory dramatic he replaced his face with that of a dead thing, a monster. He liked to pretend that he had geared himself up in heavy leather and warpaint that morning. The truth was far less interesting.

Ben Harmon was a good listener because he was paid to be. He played with his pen and looked concerned, and in truth Tate liked a captive audience. He wanted to frighten the man just enough to put him on edge, but a small, tiny part of him wanted that fatherly approval, the acknowledgement that he was special. When Ben described him as creative, Tate had to remind himself why he was there.

Once he glanced up and the Bloodied Other was behind Ben's chair, which had always puzzled Tate. He thought it must be a manifestation of the lie – whenever he dreamed himself into these exciting, dramatic situations, the Other would appear, for no other reason than to be a silent acknowledgement of the real truth. Tate saw it as the price he paid for such proficiency in deception.

Near the end of the session he heard the front door slam which meant that Violet must be home from school. He heard her throw her bag at the wall and storm into the downstairs bathroom, and felt his breath quicken with sudden excitement. He made his replies as monosyllabic as possible, and after a short while Ben called their session to an end.

He waited for a few seconds after Ben had escorted him to the entrance before slipping back to the bathroom door and opening it silently. Violet had her back turned to him, but he could see the angry red slits along her wrist reflected in the mirror and felt his throat constrict. He watched the small drops of blood hitting the sink in silence, though each one seemed loud as cannon fire. He watched her face for signs of passion or anger or pain, but she was deadly calm. It frightened him, and he hadn't been frightened in a long time.

She ran her slim fingers over the wounds, and in a moment it was too much for Tate to bear.

"You're doing it wrong," he blurted, and wondered for a second if he'd only imagined speaking.

Her eyes flashed to the mirror, but she didn't scream. He wondered for an instant what she must think of this strange boy in his dated clothes leaning against her door – her face betrayed nothing. He felt his defenses slide into place as he met her gaze, and in a harsher tone-

"If you're trying to kill yourself, cut vertically. They can't stitch that up."

She spun, and her voice quivered with anger at this personal secret he'd stepped so carelessly into. "How'd you get in here?" she demanded.

He didn't like the way she looked at him; the accusation in the eyes of this girl he felt so curious about felt too personal. He felt his voice turn scornful.

"If you're trying to kill yourself, you might also try locking a door," he quipped, with a patronizing grin. She didn't move, and he pulled the door shut.

He stood there for a moment, hand resting on the door handle, and then stepped into her room a floor upwards. He crossed the floor to the chest of drawers and rifled through it to find the box she had hidden. It was small and aged, covered in worn green velvet, and inside was an untidy jumble of little scissors, knives and blades that she had obviously collected for some time, along with small rolls of gauze and a half-empty box of band-aids.

He slammed the lid back on furiously. Why would she do it to herself? Why had it struck him as a bright idea to taunt her about it, to tell her how it should be done? He shut the drawers and crossed into the basement, brushing Thaddeus aside to go sit in the dilapidated armchair that had long been his favorite. He couldn't have explained why, but somehow it had been important to him that this girl wasn't as crazy as everyone else in the house.

~:~:~

The charade of being Ben Harmon's patient the next day felt a little too galling to bear. Tate lounged on the sofa in the psychiatrist's office, amusing himself with sarcastic little remarks to the ingratiatingly reasonable questions.

Downstairs, the front door opened, and Tate listened to the sound of Violet taking off her shoes and creeping upstairs.

"…And I tell you what, we'd be terrified to lie to him."

Tate glanced over at Ben's smug face. "You think I'm lying to you?" he demanded, rising to his feet and moving to the chair, in order to better watch the doorway. Violet padded softly across the carpet in the hall and peered around the corner into the study. Tate pretended not to notice.

Ben crossed the room to give that more 'personal' approach to his therapy which Tate despised. "I've treated psychotics before, people with the right combination of chemical balance and psychological damage that can't be reached."

Tate looked up at him curiously. He knew that after his death people had thrown around words like schizophrenia and psychosis to explain a quiet schoolboy's 'sudden snap', in order to place as little blame as possible on his 'distraught' mother in her time of grief. It was a funny thing to have it suggested to him again all these years later.

"Do you think that's me? Do you think I can't get better?" from the corner of his eye, he saw Violet stiffen by the door. Would it scare her, knowing that he wasn't quite right? Would it make him somehow more appealing to this girl that took a knife to her own skin?

Ben had made some sort of inane joke that Tate didn't hear and he overcompensated with an enthusiastic laugh to make the man feel as though he was doing his job well.

"Everybody can get better, Tate, everybody. I just think you're scared – of what, I'm not sure yet, maybe rejection."

Tate glanced down, rebuffing the word. He didn't need Violet knowing his weaknesses. "I was afraid my big dick wouldn't work," he said, changing the subject. He grinned at the thought of the expression that must be on Violet's face.

Ben laughed in surprise. "What?"

Tate giggled. "Yeah, that's why I didn't take the meds. I was afraid my dick wouldn't work. Because I met someone."

He heard Violet's soft breathing hitch ever so slightly, and at last met her eyes with his own. Did it hurt her, to think of him meeting someone else? He held her gaze for a moment, then turned back to Ben, who was explaining what the medication would mean to him. When he glanced back at the doorway a moment later, Violet had disappeared.

At the end of the session Moira came in to give Ben the phone, and Tate took the opportunity to usher himself out. He rolled his eyes at Moira's ridiculous French Maid getup. It would forever be a mystery to him why she took such interest in seducing the men of the house. She had only tried it on him once, years earlier, and had been so frightened of Constance's reaction when she found out that that she'd never attempted it again.

Tate crossed the house and climbed the stairs to Violet's floor. He could hear music playing – music that he liked – and knocked on the wood softly.

She opened it so quickly he wondered if she had been waiting for him.

"You shouldn't be here," she said unconvincingly.

"You shouldn't listen to my private confessional with Pastor Harmon," Tate said with a smirk. "Patient-Doctor confidentiality and all that. I could have you arrested."

Violet snorted and opened the door wider, turning back into her room. A book lay open on the floor where she had been reading it; she sat down and shut the spine. Tate closed the door.

"Nice work with the room. Looks good," he said, examining her posters and bedspread. She had already unpacked all of her boxes – it was obvious she had little to do here but spend time in her room.

"Do you know this house?" She asked.

"Oh, yeah, I was friends with the people who lived here before you."

"The couple that killed themselves?"

He glanced back at her and came to sit on the floor in front of where she sat. "Yeah. Gay couple. Visited them here a few times." He glanced at her wrists, covered in another of her oversized jumpers. She cleared her throat, and he snapped back to meet her gaze.

"What you saw yesterday-"

"It's cool, I didn't tell your dad. Wouldn't want Doctor Harmon knowing his daughter's a little fuck up."

"I'm not a fuck up," Violet snapped. "You don't know anything about my life. You're the psycho patient, not me."

Tate laughed, and Violet calmed down a little. "Fair enough, sorry. I used to do it too, you know."

She looked at him curiously. "Really?"

Tate lifted his wrist and pulled down his sweater. "This one I did after my dad left, I was…ten, I think," he said, pointing at the scars that were barely visible anymore.

Violet paused before lifting her own arm. Her cuts were brighter, and there were more of them. He felt that uncomfortable lump in his throat at the sheer magnitude of scars fading on her arm. "Last week, first day at my new school," she said, mimicking his casual tone. "Sucks."

"Westfield, right?" For a moment a bloodied image of the school logo appeared in his vision, the memory of brain matter splattered across a student diary. "The worst. I got thrown out of there." He smirked.

"I hate it there," Violet blurted. "I hate everyone, all their boushee designer bullshit." She said the word like a child might say it – cursing because it expressed her anger better, but without the careless familiarity of an adult swearing. "East Coast was much cooler. I mean, at least we had weather."

"I love it when the leaves change."

"Yeah, me too!"

Tate let out a little laugh and stood up, turning away. He hadn't seen her smile before. The innocence of it almost broke his heart.

"Why'd you move here?" he asked with his back to her.

"My dad had an affair," she replied coolly. "My mom literally caught him in the act."

Tate felt a sudden rush of anger for the fatherly, reasonable Doctor Harmon. Who was he to lecture him on being a better person when he was willing to throw away his whole family to get laid? He reached for the chalk underneath the blackboard on her wall.

"That's horrible," he said honestly. Violet looked surprised at his fervor. "If you love someone, you should never hurt them – never." he clarified. He turned back to the blackboard and wrote the nickname Thaddeus had given him – TAINT.

"Right?" She said with a bitter smile, "I know. And the worst part is that six months earlier my mom had this brutal miscarriage. The baby was seven months old and we had to have this macabre funeral." He turned to look at her with sympathy. "Have you ever seen a baby coffin?"

He moved to sit in front of her again. Violet's callousness fascinated him. She couldn't be older than thirteen – had all she'd seen in her parents jaded her already to the world? He reached for her hand, holding it gently, stroking the red slits with his fingertips.

"I'm sorry." He anticipated her shock, had already released her hand when she stood up.

"Why are you seeing my dad?" she asked, changing the subject abruptly.