Last update for the night! Thank you to everyone that's following this story. I really want to make this the anti-cliche baby fic. Also, this chapter is told by Constance's point of view, because I'm a huge fan of that crazy lady.
Constance doesn't like Violet. It can be anything from how the girl dresses, how she carries herself, or the fact her parents have neglected her for so long that they don't know how to see what Constance sees. Besides not being immune to tragedy, Constance's curse is seeing what no one else does, or fails to acknowledge due to their ignorance. Mrs. Harmon is nice enough, Constance can see some of herself in her if she squints, but she's just as weak as her infantile husband. Don't even get her started on that abomination of a man: he's supposed to be helping her boy, not letting his teenage harlot grow pregnant with her son's seed.
She sits on the stool, leaning against the counter top in her kitchen as she inhales and exhales the pack of cigarettes that were meant for Violet. She's expecting Billie today for answers, answers she wants and wants them now, and Constance Langdon isn't a woman to be denied of what she wants. The Medium should know better.
She blows out a string of smoke as her dark eyes stare at the photo she cherishes above all else: Tate, smiling his beautiful smile, holding Adelaide as he leans against the tree. She feels the lone tear that trails down her wrinkled cheek, but she doesn't bother wiping it away. She accepts it, just like she has accepted anything and everything in her life. It doesn't do to dwell on what might've beens or could've beens because at the end of the day, there isn't a damn thing to be done about it.
Oh, how she wishes she was a better mother to her children in the beginning. Maybe then Beau, Addy, and Tate would still be alive. She has another, one with her face and Hugo's eyes, but she skipped town as soon as she graduated, her obvious gimp and all. Constance confesses on missing her daughter, Beau's twin, but is glad she made something of herself. Glad that she got the hell away from that house before it tainted her like it did Tate.
That's her only regret at the end of the day: that she could've done better, knew she should've done better, but didn't all the same.
Now she's been given a grandbaby. Oh, she's stopped questioning on how the hell it could've happened; she has Billie—whose thirty minutes tardy, mind you.—to ask about that. Yet, at the end of the day, she isn't going to care about the how or why, just that it is.
She's accepting like that.
"Sorry so late," Billie apologizes as she puts her purse on the table, sliding into the seat adjacent to Constance's with labored breathing. "Just got back from the studio, those Lifetime producers are more moronic than the A&E ones, were." She comments, taking her own cigarette out for a long, drawn out drag to come to her senses. Constance says nothing, merely acknowledges her presence with an arch of a light brow. "About this baby business, I have answers, but I'm afraid you're not going to like them, especially when I tell you that Violet isn't the only one pregnant with your psychopathic son's seed."
Constance's blood runs cold and she almost forgets to exhale her own drag. "Excuse me? My boy is dead and bound to that ungodly place; he isn't exactly able to becoming a sperm donor."
Billie's eyes soften, if only a little, and if makes Constance want to bash her head against the wooden table they both sat at repeatedly. "Two babies; two different mothers; same father: I take it you're aware of another pregnancy inside that house?"
"Mrs. Harmon?" Constance asks, incredulously. "Tate hardly knows her. That baby inside that woman's body is the result of her foolish husband, not my boy." Already at the filter of her cigarette, she puts it out in the ash tray, her heart thudding in her ribcage like a damn drum. "There's more, Constance," Billie begins, reaching out to hold the woman's wrinkled hand, only to have Constance yank it away—far away. She doesn't want to hear what else the woman has to say, since it's obviously nothing helpful but assumptions, but that doesn't stop the Medium from speaking and it doesn't stop Constance from listening.
"Spirits aren't potent, or even known to radiate enough energy to even have intercourse, but that house has so much negative energy spirits are free to manipulate it and do as they will. The only spirits outside that house that have that much power are entities. Demonic, to be blunt, are more known to make contact, whereas a spirit usually has to work up all that energy to even poke another person. It takes a lot of time and patience." Another drag, as if taking a cue to be the overly dramatic woman Constance knows her to be, before she continues: "However, I did my research as promised; there have been some records of paranormal pregnancies. The most famous one occurs in the Gospel of Matthew. 'And from her, she shall bring forth a son, and thou shall call him Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.' The Holy Spirit merely whispered in the virgin's ear and she's begotten with the son of God. Another is merely assumed amongst scholars, where before God flooded the Earth, angels and man consummated and made giants, to which why God told Noah to build his Ark and flooded the Earth of the abomination."
"What does any of this have to do with my grandbaby?" Constance asks, defiantly. Billie isn't shaken. It's one of the things Constance has to admire about her: her strength. "We can quote scripture all you want, but you acted like you saw something untoward and I want to know what it is."
Billie takes another drag. This time, Constance realizes by how her hands shake, it isn't for pure dramatics. It's to get her barrens before she says something that may-or-may-not sit right with Constance. She starts another story about a Pope Box, how inside is given the pinpoint date and act of the conception of the Antichrist, which causes Constance to give a tired eye roll. "I'm not claiming the child inside that emo teenager is the Antichrist, but from everything I've read, one of them will bring about the end of days. Regardless, I can get in touch with some Shamans who're better equipped at this than me. I just see and speak to the dead." As she finishes, she passes over the scribbled number across the table on one of the napkins Constance must've had lying around. "Like it or not, your son's seed is in two wombs, and one is carrying the bringer of the end of days. And I'm afraid that no matter what you may do, nothing will stop it."
"Who told you he's fathering two babies?" Constance asks, voice shaking as she reaches for another cigarette to light.
This time when Billie reaches to hold Constance's hand, the older woman doesn't pull away. "One of the original ghosts: the one your son promised to give a child to. Nora."