Three months ago.

Adelaide sits in the nicely cut grass of the park mommy takes her every day after her mother's classes. It's nice, quiet, and a place for Adelaide to think while mommy studies silently, still managing to keep an eye on Adelaide. See, Adelaide would be interested in someone walking their dog—Adelaide loves animals! Unfortunately, Aunt Jill is allergic to everything but birds, so Santa Claus had to deny her puppy for just a little longer!—and before she could squeal in delight, mommy would clear her voice and tell her to come back. Mommy has eyes everywhere; Adelaide isn't sure how that's possible, but she knows it's true.

People try to come up and talk to her, but unless there's a dog she never says a word. She doesn't like strangers. She doesn't like the unfamiliar and certainly doesn't like the stares they give her and mommy. Mommy says it's because they don't know what to say, or that they're too filled with bullshit they don't know where it ends or begins, but Adelaide doesn't like it all the same. Some would come and pinch her cheeks, or try to talk to her, and once when a child her age came up and snatched her favorite toy away all she could do was rock back and forth and scream until the parent forced the child to give it back. (Her mommy looked like she was about to blow up, but thankfully she didn't. Adelaide loves her mommy; mommy blowing up wouldn't be a good thing at all.)

It's out of the corner of her eye does she see a stray French bulldog, limping, bloodied, and finally collapsing in a heap only to be comforted by its whimpers. Adelaide quickly pushes her toy construction truck to the side and rushes toward the injured canine. Blonde curls bounce as her tiny legs make their way towards the animal, her face etched with worry, and not even her mother calling out her name—"Addy! Stay away from it, it could have rabies!"—can make her leave the animal's side.

"Addy sorry," she replies with a soft voice, placing her tiny hand over the bleeding wound. Someone hurt it—him—and all she wants is to make it all better, like her mommy does when she hurts herself and mommy kisses the pain away. Adelaide shuts her eyes, tightly, ignoring the people that surround her in pure curiosity, and rocks back and forth. Please make it better, she begs to something, anything, her bottom lip trembling. A surge of electricity starts from the tip of her toes to the crown of her head, all the way to her fingertips and onto the animal. Please.

When Adelaide opens her eyes, there's no more wound, and the animal picks itself off of his feet like nothing ever happened.

Adelaide turns to her mommy with a bright grin and dancing eyes: "Addy makes things new!"

It's been a week since the funeral and Violet can't seem to make herself go back to Florida with Adelaide like she intended three days prior; she wants to say it's the product of not wanting to jump back onto a plane so quickly, but she knows it isn't true. She misses her parents. She misses Tate. God help her, does she miss Tate. She hasn't been with anyone else since Tate, either. She tells herself it's because of Addy, how she doesn't want to confuse her, or put the burden of a single mother of a special needs child on anyone else, but she knows better: it's because she isn't, and never will be, completely over Tate. It's a different situation now Adelaide is there; she can't help but to love the boy covered in darkness because he gave her Addy. When she makes her way back to the house, holding Adelaide's small, shaking hand in hers, she's grateful that Tate has agreed to meet them outside.

Addy is scared of the house.

"Bad house," she whispers, pointing a chubby finger towards the Victorian two-story dream home that brought her Tate. It also brought her years of nightmares, only to be quieted by the little girl beside her. "Bad house!" She says again, this time louder. When she sees the door open, it isn't Tate she sees, but a woman on a cane that looks just like him besides her short build and blue eyes. "May I help you?" She asks, leaning on her cane for support.

"No," Violet replies, biting her chapped lip at how awkward this is. "I-I used to live here, actually, and I'm just showing my daughter what it looks like."

The woman seems convinced and holds out her good hand, even if it makes her balance a bit off kilter: "Bianca Olson. I used to live here, too, when I was younger."

"Violet Harmon," she introduces herself, shaking the hand before pulling away just as quick as she gave it. (Violet hates shaking hands. It's weird.) "Same."

Adelaide doesn't say anything. She only hides her face in her mother's leggings. Yeah, Violet's fashion sense hasn't changed: she still looks a mix between a frumpy cat lady and someone who wishes they lived in the nineties. On good days Addy lets Violet dress her in something other than that pajama set she loves so much and today? Today is one of those days. She looks like a replica of her mother, even if her curly blonde hair says otherwise. "Michael told me about you. He says you're his…sister, right?"

"Uh, yeah, when my mom died in child birth my dad kinda…" Violet trails off, awkwardly. "So Constance took Michael in." At least, that's the story she's heard. "Did you know Michael or Constance?"

"She was my mother, if you could call that woman my mother," the woman says bitterly, looking as if she's swallowed something dissatisfactory.

Well, if this isn't the strangest family reunion she's ever had?

Violet gives an awkward nod and Bianca invites them inside. "I don't know…" And to prove her point, Adelaide sits down on the ground in an indian-style, rocking back and forth, her tiny palms cupping her ears. "Addy…" she coos, bending down to scoop the five year old in her arms, rubbing her back. "Maybe somewhere outside? Addy's scared of the house."

Turns out the front of the house has a little swing. Violet manages to calm Adelaide down long enough to sit. Moments later it seems Adelaide has forgotten her discomfort and is rolling around on the grass, sullying her close. Not that Violet cares. The swing lazily rocks back and forth has Bianca and Violet talk, getting to know each other. Bianca recounts her falling out with her mother, never being told of Beau's or Addie's death, and when the topic of Tate comes up the girls both grow uneasy. "He died here," Bianca tells Violet, who wears the world's best poker face as she listens, nodding. "After that I sort of…stopped trying to get in touch with my siblings. It scared me. He scared me."

"That sucks," is the only thing Violet can think of.

They talk about writing—something they both share in common—and the troubles of being a young parent. Bianca, supposedly, got pregnant her freshman year at NYU by her professor who, as it turns out, is now her husband, David Olson. Violet learns that she likes Bianca well enough; she has to wonder that, because she's lived her before, this house doesn't let go of inhabitants if they expire on its property, but she keeps that to herself. She asks about Michael, her brother, and Bianca says that he and David are shopping, "You should stay 'til they come back," Bianca offers brightly. "I know he wants to meet you and maybe he and Adelaide can have a play-date or something?"

It couldn't hurt, Violet thinks to herself. Adelaide can always use friends. Violet knows how it is not to have many or none at all, all too well. She doesn't want the same fate for her daughter.

A scream disrupts Violet from her thoughts: Adelaide isn't in the yard. Panic makes bile rise in her throat as her heart thuds wildly in her chest. A loud thud is sounded on the inside of the house and Violet all but rushes through the familiar door to see her daughter lying on the tile, holding her leg to her chest, face damp with tears—and blood. Violet rushes to her little girl's side to pick her up, smoothing matted hair away from her face to reveal deep claw marks. "Addy hurt!" She whines, snot dripping from her nostril. Violet looks around, franticly, nostrils flaring with anger and fear. It can't be Thaddeus: that Frankenstein baby never leaves the basement to the best of her knowledge.

"What happened?" Bianca asks, sitting beside Violet with furrowed brows. In front of the three girls stands a worried Tate. Violet looks at Bianca to see if she notices him, but the woman doesn't. "I'll go get my first aid kit."

With some difficulty, Bianca helps herself up with the cane and leaves to where it's only Violet, her petrified little girl, and Tate, who takes Bianca's place bending beside her. "I just heard screaming, Vi," he confesses, rubbing the little girl's back soothingly—or tries to. When Adelaide flinches—"Addy hurt!"—Violet notices blood stains on the back of her blouse. Pulling Addy's shirt up, there's a deep, inverted cross carved or clawed into her pale back. "What the shit?" Violet hisses, tears brimming in her eyes. "Who did this, Tate? Who the fuck would do this?"

He has no name. He was never born, not in the human sense. He has never been alive but, if he were to have a name, he'd call himself Seth. That's the name he introduced himself with to Charles when he summoned him to give life to his dead, mutilated child. The insane, tired, grieving doctor sealed his fate when he shook Seth's hand. All the lives he took were the blood that tainted the house, therefore becoming a prison to any who enter and die inside the walls. Why? Because he has always known it was getting ready for The One.

The One was born in this house. The One was the boy that has been foretold ever since Seth was brought into existence.

Seth will do whatever it takes to protect The One, especially from the only thing on Earth that can destroy him.

The little girl repels him by her being there. He tried slowing down her brain activity as a child, or causing her birth early rather than on time, if only to weaken her or cripple her from ever reaching the goal. His Master was disappointed that the early onset of labor didn't do anything. Yet, Seth was thankful when the girl was taken from the house, hoping that nature would take its course and maybe take care of the problem for him.

No such luck.

He doesn't kill her. As soon as she entered the house through the back door she knew who he is, what he is, and he's thankful she's too young to build up any barrier between himself and her so he can attack. He has help, but he knows she does, too. What he gives her is a warning. Warning to stay away from the house, his greatest achievement, and warning to stay away from The One: he knows now that he shouldn't be the one to kill her, The One should, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't.

The boy that works so well as a vessel—Master was right; the broken are so easy to use!—should've kept his seed to the vulnerable womb of the mother; instead, he complicated matters in creating her.

When everyone is asleep and The One is safe away from the girl, Seth's mind has to form a plan. He needs a vessel, a living one, to do the work he needs by able to leave and stay whenever the vessel wished.

He descends to his Master to discuss such matters, leaving the newest occupants at the mercy of the ghosts for the time being. But he'll return.

He always has.