Trigger Warning: scars/cutting/abuse AN:
About a week after the family left, they returned- this time with moving trucks. Violet couldn't help but feel a rush of excitement when she saw the first car park outside and Ms. Langdon step out, holding a set of old keys that matched the locks to the house.
So they bought it. Violet thought to herself resolutely. Time for the shit to hit the fan.
For a few days there was nothing but chaos in the house. Violet often stayed in the attic or the basement to get away from all the noise on the main floors, as she wasn't used to so many living people being around and it tired her out. Whenever she did happen to be on a main floor, she tended to follow around the new family and watch what they were doing.
Ms. Langdon always seemed to have a glass of wine in her hand as she directed the movers with every piece of furniture throughout the entire house, only occasionally setting the glass down to light a cigarette. Violet never saw her without a pair of heels and perfectly styled outfits and hair. She wondered where the woman got the time to get so dolled up.
Adelaide, which was the name of the handicapped girl, Violet found out, mostly stayed in the kitchen or dining room crudely coloring in pictures of princesses. She was occasionally visited by her brother, Tate, who would come and quietly compliment the colorings. She would look up at him smugly, like she knew the pictures were works of art, and sometimes offered one or two to him. He always accepted them awkwardly, but with obvious appreciation.
When Tate wasn't with Adelaide he was helping move, following his mother's orders like he was one of the workers. He literally looked like he was dying as he labored through the heat in his navy blue pullover and jeans, curls plastered to the sides of his face from sweat. He was constantly an unhealthy shade of red.
I think the heat will kill him before the house gets a chance to. Violet thought, a bit concerned as she watched them drag a couch across the lawn. Tate… That's a good name.
All of the boy's things were moved into her room, which she had expected but was still a bit irritated by. Sure, she could move to another room or something, but she loved that room- hell, she'd died in that room. She didn't want to give it up to anybody, no matter how cute.
But she couldn't really do anything about it, so she watched miserably from her windowsill as everything was placed. There wasn't a whole lot of furniture, just a bed, a bookcase, and a matching dresser and nightstand that all had to be set up. They unpacked large boxes of clothing, random personal items, and a shit ton of books, setting everything up as Ms. Langdon wanted.
At the end of each day after the moving crew left, Ms. Langdon would prepare some traditional meal and the family would sit stonily around the dining room table, eating quietly. There was hardly ever any conversation except every now and then when Ms. Langdon would make comments about the house; mostly "We should really do something about that god-awful wallpaper." And she'd sip her wine, seeming to not really expect any response. Tate would just stare down at his meal, taking very small bites and ignoring his mother.
Violet didn't understand the relationship between the family. All of their interactions, besides when the mother was ordering the children around, seemed forced and discordant, unnatural. Tate hardly ever spoke when his mother was around, but even with just his sister he seemed stiff and awkward, although it was obvious that he preferred her company over the woman's.
There was always suppressed tension at the dinner table, and it was the part of the day that Violet dreaded the most. Still, she couldn't seem to stay away.
Some of the other ghosts had begun trying to scare the new people out, but it was mostly Moira, the one person who actually liked people living in the house, who really got anywhere. The Sunday after all of the movers were officially gone, Moira was up and in the kitchen making breakfast before anyone was awake. Ms. Langdon had come down the stairs cautiously, suspicious of the noise, and nearly screamed when she saw the woman.
But apparently Moira reassured her that she was the maid and that she was there to help out with things for a pay, and went on her whole spiel about coming with the house blah blah blah. Ms. Langdon apparently didn't seem too bothered by the fact that the woman had broken into her house because she hired her almost immediately. You'd think that someone so glamorous would be more concerned with a sketchy maid. Violet thought that it was weird, but hey, at least Moira was doing something.
The Monday after that, Ms. Langdon woke up earlier than usual. Violet watched her as she got ready, pulling curlers out of her hair and meticulously brushing on an elegant face of make-up. The woman had set the outfit she was going to wear out the night before, a black professional-looking dress, and she slipped it on gracefully. Violet had turned away when she had undressed, not that nudity bothered her or anything, just because she felt like she was encroaching on the woman's privacy.
That sounds so stupid- I've been literally watching every move these people make and now nudity is crossing the line. Violet thought that it was kind of funny. Hey, I'm a ghost; I think that I have the right to test the boundaries of privacy.
Eventually Ms. Langdon left, but not before Violet saw her pour a few drops of some sort of liquor into her large mug of coffee. This was also amusing to Violet. So she's one of those drunk business moms. No wonder her kids avoid her. After she left, the house felt quiet and empty, and Moira wouldn't "arrive" until around noon.
School didn't start for another couple weeks so the teenagers probably wouldn't be waking up for a few more hours. Violet quietly climbed up to the second floor and went to Adelaide's room, which was the room that was going to be a nursery when Violet's family had moved in. She looked at the girl sleeping soundly in her bed and imagined a toddler sleeping similarly in a crib, curled up on its side. Had there not been the cheating and the miscarriage and the dying, things might have turned out alright. So basically if we lived in a perfect world, things would be perfect. Glad I could figure that out.
The room never became a nursery, but the light green walls still seemed childlike and innocent. She thought it fit Addy. She left the door cracked as she turned back into the hall to head to her room. My old room she corrected herself, a bit irritated. She had relocated into the attic, which wasn't too bad except that it was storage for the random shit that didn't fit anywhere else. How proper. She would have stayed down in the basement, but the air down there was always slightly oppressive and Violet felt that it probably wouldn't be a good place for her to spend any extended period of time.
She felt weird having to sneak into the room that she used to spend all of her time in, but at the same time she found it exciting. Her heart started to beat faster as she reached for the door handle and felt butterflies in her stomach as she turned it. She thought that if she were alive she'd be sweating bullets. The door swung open and she felt as nervous as ever, even if she knew that Tate would have no knowledge of her being there. The blinds on one side of the room were partially open, letting in the soft glow of the 6:00 AM morning light and making Violet feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
She could see the boy sleeping from where she stood, his arms sprawled across the bed and blond curls obviously disheveled. He was shirtless and as Violet approached the side of the bed she couldn't help but admire how good he looked in this light. He wasn't too skinny or too muscular, and his skin was naturally smooth and pale but the lighting made him seem more tan. Violet thought he looked almost angelic.
But then she looked a bit closer and saw that his smooth skin was covered with a countless number of scars. All up his arms and around his hips and ribs were covered with thin marks in various colors and stages of healing that were all too familiar to Violet.
"Another teen tragedy." She whispered to herself knowingly, reaching out to run her hands along the small bumps. But then she noticed other scars; small circular indentations that were mostly on the upper arm. No… She moved her face closer, trying to get a better look at the healed cigarette burns. Violet had taken a forensics class her freshman year and learned that multiple cigarette burns were almost always caused by an abusive adult. All of Violet's sadness was replaced with anger, stronger than she'd ever felt before- she could kill someone, rip them apart limb by limb, burn what's left of them.
But then the boy shifted, going from on his back to curled up on his side, his arm moving up and covering his face. Violet moved away, trying to get her anger under control. We shouldn't jump to conclusions, She told herself, who knows what those are from, right? She anxiously pulled at her sleeves and scratched her head. Right?