NOTE: This chapter is written in the form of a flashback—it is still in the third-person. However, the flashback reverts to normal third-person at the line.

Britta had not remembered much about her resurrection—everything was just a vague memory. She had only remembered being on the Other Side beyond time and memory and details about her life before death.

Born on June 3, 1935 on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, Britta's early life up until young adulthood was filled with tragedy, abuse, and strife. She was orphaned at age four after a fire tore through her family farm with their house included; at the age of five, she was adopted by a family from the northern part of Sweden. They were distant at first, but their treatment of Britta only got worse as they discovered she had powers—they beat her, neglected her, isolated her by locking her in closets or the freezing-cold cellar, and subjected to harsh verbal and mental abuse. Olaf, her foster father, had been an alcoholic, yet the family as a whole was devoutly religious even to a fanatical degree. Olaf and his wife, Marta, had a grown son named Lars, who was clearly mentally unstable. Her life of self-blame and shame would only get worse after one fateful night.

Starting at age thirteen, Lars had sexually abused Britta. His height was a staggering six-foot-five and his large-boned build and strength gave him an even more frightening aura. He had platinum blonde hair cut close to his head, and his eyes were as icy as his stone cold heart. They radiated a pale, blue-gray color; his gaze was intense enough to frighten his mother. Britta had always known there was something wrong with him mentally, but he was simply deviant. He had ripped her flower of innocence away from her as she tried to sleep one peaceful night, nearly crushing her windpipe in an effort to keep her silent. Lars had his way with the girl four times within the following two years—at least until she found out she was pregnant with his child. She had secretly gone to the doctor after school one day after experiencing a high fever and vomiting, but she did not know they were signs of being with child—she just thought she was ill.

Yet when she found out the truth, she rushed home and hid in the cellar after grabbing a kitchen knife. Britta has planned to kill herself, not being able to take life as she knew it anymore. She hid underneath the empty stairwell, rolled up the sleeve of her thick sweater and took the knife to her left wrist, applying a lot of pressure as the blade sliced across veins and tissue. It was excruciating, but she knew she had to die in order to find happiness at last. With her wrist bleeding uncontrollably, she took the knife in that hand and sliced open the other one in the same fashion, if not deeper, than the other.

"Father," she had whispered. "Please forgive me."

Marta, her foster mother, had come downstairs after hearing noises, and when the girl cried for help, she backed away and held out her cross pendant as though she were a vampire or some other lower, 'unholy' form of life. Leaving her there to die from blood loss or infection, she had run upstairs to dial the phone to find a place to put Britta once and for all—Konradsberg.

It had been a dark chapter in Britta's life during the time she was confined in the Stockholm mental institution in 1950—she was categorized as delusional, especially since she fiercely stood behind her claims that she had powers. The main reason at first was being suicidal, and the first month or so had been devoted to psychoanalysis. It wasn't until after that the doctors found out she was pregnant, so an abortion was performed. After the operation, Britta was in excruciating pain, begging to leave the institution.

"Are you causing trouble again?" the doctor asked. Britta shook her head, her gaze piercing up at him.

"No," she replied. "I don't belong here. I know that for a fact."

"Ms. Nordlund, you cut your wrists and tried to kill yourself. That's not normal behavior," the doctor replied, trying to maintain calm. "You also think you have powers. You don't. It's all in your head."

"It's not in my head!" she screamed, focusing her anger on the open door of her hospital room and slamming it shut. The doctor and nurse both jumped and were startled, looking back at it—the doctor shrugged and went to try and open it back up again.

"Do you remember wind being in the forecast?" he asked the nurse. As she shrugged, the young patient grew impatient and even angrier.

"That wasn't the wind, that was me," Britta sneered. "Get me out of here!"

"If you act out of line again, you'll be next in the lobotomy room," the doctor hissed threateningly, looking down at her menacingly; she was slightly intimidated and looked up at him. "Understood?"

She was once again ostracized for the powers she had been born with, and the institution was very much like a prison. The patients were confined to their rooms for a total of eighteen hours per day, the remaining six hours being set aside for recreation, showering, exercise, and if a patient needed to talk to a doctor, they could. Britta spent a lot of time alone, telekinetically sketching on her easel, reveling on memories of early childhood, and Sundays were spent reading the positive part of the Bible.

In 1953, a German expatriate from the United States had been on a trip to Europe looking for someone special—Britta, who had met the criteria, had been freed from the prison-like hospital and taken to America, where she performed in Fraulein Elsa's Cabinet of Curiosities, a side-show displaying people with unusual and unique physical features. Elsa Mars was the name of the owner, and she always incorporated her own act at the very end of the show wearing garish clothing and makeup. Strangely enough, the troupe members were about as downtrodden as Britta was herself, and she did not have any physical deformities—why me, she had thought, I am no freak.

Her short-lived carnie career was highly successful; Elsa had been raking in cash up to her ears from people all over Florida who had seen her levitate things on stage, and all of the carnies in the freak show had liked her, especially Jimmy Darling—exhibiting syndactyly in his hands, he was very handsome and charming with great dark eyes and auburn-brown gelled curls at the front of his head. He had helped her open up and showed her how to trust again, especially after hearing about all she had been through. Britta had been slow to return his affections, even after they made love for the very first time. After a rich psychopath wounded and massacred audience members in the last show, Elsa was forced to close down the show due to safety concerns for the public. Jimmy already had plans to marry Britta, who was only a few weeks pregnant with their first child, and they did so in spring 1954.

Shortly after their intimate, low-key wedding, Jimmy had led an exodus of sorts to a small farm in Barnwell, South Carolina, leading his new family and the carnies to a better life. It was a small town, and people were more accepting of them than he previously thought. It was here that Britta had given birth to five living children and raised them with the help of the carnies. Ethel, a bearded woman who was Jimmy's mother, had died in 1958—meanwhile, Britta had suffered a total of four miscarriages during her marriage. Having her last child, a daughter, nearly killed her—she named her Elina. Before her, Britta gave birth to three sons—Christopher, Tobias, and Julian—and one ambiguous child with two names, Annika and Adam.

Britta could not remember that Annika, her eldest child, had undergone a sex reassignment surgery in the early 1980s. In her mind, two people were one person but still her child.

Elina was the only one of her children to have inherited the powers. She was the most beautiful child anyone had ever seen with platinum hair and fiery amber-colored eyes. As she grew into a preteenager, she was the apple of not only her family's eye, but the eyes of their church congregation.

In her life in Barnwell, Britta was a good housewife and an active member of the Lutheran church group. She and the children went to church every Sunday, and always made sure Elina was dressed modestly and in good taste. Even she dressed in an abnormally modest fashion. Having spent a lot of her time in the house doing domestic duties, Britta even spoke her mother tongue with her children—they were fluent in both Swedish and English. Her marriage with Jimmy had become practically sexless in the years leading up to her unexpected death in 1980.

The only thing Britta remembered about her death was waking up on a pyre on the Other Side with a group of women standing around her as her eyes opened—among them were previous generations of women in her bloodline, including Frida, her mother. She remembered the ageless older woman placing her cold hand on her forehead, stroking it softly before planting a kiss on it.

Britta also recalled how she spent a lot of time watching over her living family members on Earth, especially Elina. She remembered seeing how her widower fared without her alive, and even recalled how Jimmy had let his once-fertile farm turn into a dusty wasteland. He eventually lost his property because he was too immersed in alcohol abuse to pay attention to what had gone on around him; he had also emotionally neglected his daughter, but when the property in Barnwell was foreclosed, they relocated to a small apartment in Jupiter, Florida. There, things only got worse.

Britta was disgusted to know that her husband had lustful stirrings for their daughter and even acted on them—she remembered crying as she saw what had gone on exactly as it happened. Geirdís, her first ancestor, and Frida had been with her to console her. Even they were appalled by what was going on.

"Min stackars dotter," she had sobbed.

"It's innocence lost, barna," Frida had told her daughter.

"She will fight back," Geirdís had predicted.

And she did—Britta had seen Elina kill her own father with her then-boyfriend, Nick, as her only witness. She had used her power to wipe out his memory of the event.

As for her other children, Britta had watched them as well, but not as closely—Christopher, who was married, had two sons with syndactyly. Tobias, or "Toby", never married, but had many affairs and a successful job as an executive at a big computer company. Julian, also called "Jules", had joined the military but after ten years of service, he married and had three sons, all with the same deformity as his grandfather. As for her eldest, Annika and Adam had gone up to New York and married, but her/his life was wrecked horribly by Elina while she lived in his home.

"I saw everything I did not want to see," Britta explained. "My daughter made a disgrace of herself."

"How so, Miss Britta?" Cordelia asked—she had joined her two adopted daughters and the Swede just as she was beginning to recall the moments she had remembered.

"She became a hora," the Swede explained. "She killed people. She hurt people. She killed my eldest's wife. She tortured and tried to kill her babies. Yet, I do believe she was a good person before my husband did those…things to her."

"That's fucking gross," Amy scoffed.

"Amy," Clara whispered, trying to get her to stop acting so facetious.

"No, don't Amy me, Clara. That's disgusting," the younger sister snapped.

"My daughter had the power you have," Britta said, pointing vaguely at the curly-haired, fair witch. "The power of fire."

"So what happened to her? What does she have to do with us?" Amy asked, her sapphire eyes looking at the youthful, century-old woman cynically.

"She died," Britta answered. "She is your grandmother."

"She is?" Clara asked; the dark-haired young woman looked at Amy, who stared back and shrugged.

"Miss Britta, you are their great-grandmother?" Cordelia asked with wonder.

"Ja," the Swede said. "I suppose I am."

"So why was my dad so fucked up?" Amy asked.

"Amy! Stop!" Clara exclaimed.

"No, I'm serious. You said she tried to torture her babies. Was my dad one of her babies?" the blonde asked.

"Ja, he was. He was the bastard child from that…sinful union," Britta stated.

"Ew!" Amy exclaimed, nearly gagging from the thought. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"So…that explains why our dad was…slow, and deformed," Clara muttered, shaking her head slowly. "I mean, his hands only had two fingers each and were split down the middle."

"Ja," Britta said. "I felt sorry for the poor man. He was treated so badly."

"Aunt Julie was his sister, and there was nothing wrong with her," Clara said.

"She was very tall, though," Cordelia said, sitting back to relax her erect back in her lounge chair.

"I remember when she was welcomed into the Other Side with her brother," Britta sighed. "Geirdís looked at her and gasped. They were the same…uh…height. Chase was the first male in our line to have powers. He had the power of water."

"He loved the beach," Clara smiled, remembering the nostalgia of she and Amy's childhood.

There was a strange silence in the room—no one spoke, but Britta looked at Clara and Amy exclusively even though she knew Cordelia had been in the room with them. She did not know quite what to say next, so she waited for one of them to say something.

"So you don't remember how you were brought back to life, Britta?" Clara asked, breaking the silence at long last.

"Nei," she answered.

"Cordelia has the Second Sight," Amy said. "Maybe she can hold your hand and see what you can't remember?"

There was no answer from the Swede, but Cordelia stood up from her seat and walked over toward the century-old, ageless woman and extended her hand. Britta relucted before taking it, and once contact was made, Cordelia was receiving visions of memories that were buried too deep for the Swede to remember in full. The grave she had been buried in for close to sixty years was being disinterred along with several other graves because the cemetery had been bought out to build an apartment complex. In the process of digging up the few hundred coffins in the small cemetery, Britta's was left on the soil near several others that were to be picked up the following day.

Cordelia suddenly saw the dead of night in her vision, gasping as she saw the lid of the coffin burst open so that an incorrupt, living corpse could stumble out onto the grassy, dusty terrain of the cemetery.

Perfectly preserved, she thought as she saw the vision of the newly-revived Britta's pallid, sallow face.

She's stumbling.

Grunting.

Struggling to move.

Oh no.

Why is she looking up? The image of a glowing, golden apple on a nearby crabapple tree came to her, and she watched the newly-revived Britta snatch it from the branch and devour it hungrily.

What is happening to her skin? Eating the apple restored her physical youth and got rid of the ugliness death had cursed her appearance with. Her hair went from dull and ash-colored to luminously golden blonde; her skin went from sallow to radiant and fair, freckles returning to her cheeks as she had in her youth; even her nails returned to a healthy, polished white from the thick, yellowing color.

Cordelia suddenly pulled her hands away and gasped, looking at the curious, century-old woman as she took a step back. Britta sucked in her lower lip and licked it gently before releasing it, still staring up at the older woman.

"Your grave was moved," the witch explained. "Someone bought the lot to make an apartment building. Your coffin was out in the open. You burst out of it and found a golden apple. It…made you stay young, Britta. Do you remember now?"

"I do remember eating one of Idun's apples," the Swede said.

"Who is Idun?" Clara asked curiously.

"The Goddess of Youth," Britta told her. "She was Geirdís' mother. Geirdís was our first ancestor."

"I'm descended from a goddess?" Amy asked with shock. "Damn! No wonder I look so good!"

"Don't get so excited," Cordelia said. "Wait…uh…" She paused reluctantly. "Are you sure?"

"Ja. Yet our line has been more human with each century," Britta said.

"Weren't you a Christian?" Clara asked.

"I was," Britta stated. "I gave up God. During life, I believed I would go to Heaven, but I went with those gone before. There is no God. To think I became what my foster parents were…almost disgusts me."

"Do you miss your husband, Miss Britta?" Cordelia asked.

"Nei," Britta stated sadly.

"I can totally get it," Amy sneered with a chuckle. "He fucked your daughter."

"I do not think he loved me when he married me," Britta confessed. "I was with his child growing in me and we were not married. I really do believe he only married me for the child. To me, love was a duty. I was his wife. I had to be good for him."

"I think he loved you, Britta," Cordelia said softly. "What makes you say he didn't?"

"It does not matter now," the Swede replied. "He is dead. I am moved on."

Meanwhile, Michael had been bored next door; Amy had been on his mind all day. The extremely beautiful image of her in his head seemed to drive him crazy. Was it obsession or infatuation? Was it true love like often described in rosy fairy tales? He was never like this. He couldn't feel anything half the time. Yet when they had sex, he seemed to feel something—control, protectiveness, passion—whatever it was, it was adding to his deep fascination with his neighbor.

He had been sitting in the study when he glanced at the window and saw the same curly blonde hair from a distance in the living room next door. A small set of binoculars was on the desk, so he grabbed them and gently pulled the curtain further to the side. As the light from next door peeked through the lenses, as well as any remaining natural sunlight, he could see them much clearer. Yet it was not only Amy in his line of view—he could see Clara, Cordelia, and whatever could be seen of Britta, mainly her luminously radiant golden hair. He turned his eyes back to Amy, seeing her lips move as though she were talking as she stood from wherever she had been sitting. Michael also noticed her start to laugh from the distance in the window.

Then there was a strange glow—Michael gasped to see that a fire had been created in what he could see of the fireplace.

A/N:

Britta has revealed herself to her two descendents—now, what is there left?

Hm…OH! That's right! You guys want to see more of the ghosts, especially Violate. Don't worry, don't worry…I plan on something for those two.

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