Michael's room is fully furnished within two weeks. His walls are a light green and filled with Baseball memorabilia and posters, both old and new. Uncle David says if he wanted, they could look into signing him up for Little League—which is too cool!—and Michael is counting the days to when this promise is fulfilled. He hasn't met his niece, yet; Bianca told him Adelaide's scared of the house. Michael can understand that since his Nana was, too, or at least that's what he thought. The house seems to call to the boy, soothes him like a lullaby he remembers Nana singing to him when he was upset, and for the past month he's been here he's had the best sleep since he can remember. The creaking floors and the strange sounds don't bother Michael at all; it's an old house, anyway, and honestly it's like musical accompaniment to the soft, dainty hum of a sound he cannot name or fathom.

He feels safe within himself for the first time in his life.

"Sleep tight, kiddo," Bianca says, giving him a kiss on his forehead just like Nana used to do. Michael likes Bianca. She's funny, she's nice, and she doesn't let her disability hold her back. Most of all, Bianca doesn't look at him the way the others seem to do, like he's some sort of a freak. She takes care of him. "Remember: if you need anything…"

"I know." He answers with a soft smile. "Do you think Violet will bring Addy over to play tomorrow?"

After tucking Michael into bed with promises of nephew-and-niece reuniting, as well as lunch with his big sister, Bianca falls into a fitful slumber as soon as her head hits the pillow. She and her husband share a bed her mother and father shared, all too long ago. The sheets are the same, the smell of musk and lavender is still the same, and it seems not a single thing has been changed within the walls she spent her formative years in and it makes Bianca unsettled in the strangest of ways. Her eyes shoot open when shrill crying fills her ears. Turning towards her husband she notices he's still asleep—bastard can sleep through an Earth quake!—and tries to do the same.

The crying only grows in volume, causing Bianca to cover her ears to try to drown out the sound.

No, no Bianca, this isn't happening. Remember all those years you spent in therapy? There's no such thing as Haunted houses or ghosts.

"Look at me!"

Bianca's eyes shot open to find herself pinned to the bed. She's paralyzed, literally, with fear and the only sound she can hear is the loud beating of her heart against her chest. In a blurry haze she sees a woman clothed in a blood stained nursing gown, her brown eyes wide and soulless as they stare at her as the other, a twenty-something-ginger haired female holds her down, the eyeliner around her eyes seems like the only makeup she has on. "Look what he did to me."

She wants to scream at them to go away, that they're not real, but the ginger haired female only slapped her hard against her cheek if she even thought about closing her eyes or opening up her mouth to speak.

"Bitch, you can speak when I want you to, understand?"

"Look at what he did to me."

"Maybe we should induct her in the Murder House Hall of Fame?" The other girl asks, malice dripping from her voice. "It's not like this place is any more crowded. Besides, Tiny Tina's worthless piece of shit for a husband won't miss her. Not after He's done with him. Turns out your brother's Bastard Number One is gonna' cause some big shit someday."

Cold hands grip Bianca's throat, tightly, causing her to black out before a loud, angry voice yells a name she doesn't know.

"Bianca?"

She wakes up in cold sweat, her throat sore. She tries to open her mouth, but the only thing she can do is allow David to wrap his arms around her, rubbing her back soothingly as he rocks her back and forth. "It's just a dream. It's okay, babe, you're safe now."

Bianca isn't so sure.

Violet isn't sure why she hasn't left, yet, and why she's still staying at Constance's old home. Even more, why she feels the need to rent it for the time being—

Nothing makes sense anymore.

She takes some time off her classes because she doesn't have the energy to even take a course or two online. Tonight it's worse. Tonight Addy's fever is shooting up and Violet knows if her temperature rises anymore the little girl will have to go to the emergency room. She calls her parents—they both use Bianca's cellphone—for advice, anything, but Vivian's soothing voice calms the girl's nerves: "Place a cold rag on her forehead and make sure she has a lot of fluids," her mother tells her. "Really, Violet, just be calm. Her fever will break in no time."

Nothing Violet does seems to quell Adelaide's cries. All she needs is to let the medicine do what it needs to, sleep it off, and rest. Adelaide, however, is stubborn just like her mother.

Not that Violet is stubborn. Not at all.

"Addy, please," the young mother whispers helplessly, walking outside bundled up with blankets as she rocked the five year old back and forth, standing on the wooden porch. Standing up, never sitting down, because that would be too convenient: "You need to go to sleep, kiddo."

"Addy no sleep! Addy hurt!"

Out of the corner of her eye does she see Tate, face sunken and pale with worry, standing on the other side of the fence that separated the Murder House with the one she's currently renting.

"Can I hold her?" He asks, helplessly. Violet realizes that Tate hasn't held her since she was a newborn. Regardless of the circumstances, it hardly seems fair, so she lets him against her better judgment. It's not that she doesn't trust Tate, but she isn't sure how an already distraught Adelaide would take to being handed over to a stranger. Surprisingly, the little girl quiets down, resting into the dead boy's embrace (or Not Mommy, given she calls Tate nothing else but that phrase). It could be the fact she's worn herself out, or maybe she's growing attached to Tate, Violet isn't sure but she's too tired to wonder. "I can watch her while you sleep, if you want? I promise not to take her inside."

He sounds so hopeful, like a little boy pleading to his parents on why they should have a dog, and Violet's too tired to care. "Just…stay close, okay?" Violet replies, bleakly, eyes feeling heavier and heavier by the second.

She doesn't wake up until the sun's already up. She's still on the porch, sore from sleeping on said porch, and she turns around to see Tate sit across from Adelaide on the lawn, both sitting indian-style, as she talks about Vinyl records and explains why she still wants to go to her home, even if her mommy says she can't.