Britta, Clara and Amy were in the kitchen with assistance from Moira cooking up the meal Amy had promised Michael when inviting him over during her shift the night before. Clara was getting a stack of plates ready, whereas Amy was tidying up the dining room, putting down a new vase of fresh daisies plucked from the garden. Britta, however, was telekinetically stirring the big pot on the stove that had boiling vegetables in it—Moira was very confused to see sparse seasonings being put in the hot pot as Britta's mind worked at stirring it.
"Are you making a soup?" the ghost of the old maid asked.
"Nei, vegetables," the Swede replied, making the handle of the wooden spoon spin in the same direction as her finger wagged.
"I think you should add more seasonings. Vegetables can taste pretty bland on their own," the ghost said.
"I cooked for my husband, five children, and the rest on our freak farm," Britta explained. "Everyone loved my food."
"What kinds of things did you cook, Britta?" Clara asked as she got silverware out of the corresponding drawer.
"Oh, many things," the Swede said, adding salt to the boiling pot as she was handed it by Moira. "Pork ribs, ham, sausage, fish, potatoes, cabbage, onions. I would also make bread."
"Typical hick family," Amy scoffed as she entered the room. "That all sounds plain. I wouldn't eat a stitch of it."
"Hm, you are like my son," Britta said. "Tobias was a picky eater. He hated sausage and onion. He never ate it when it was put before him."
"So what did you do if your kids never ate shitty food?" the young witch asked sarcastically—Britta still had her focus on stirring the pot telekinetically.
"My husband was a…uh…what's the word?" she asked.
"Strict?" Clara suggested.
"No, not with the boys," Britta said, a detached expression on her face. "Uh…firm, is the word? With our Elina, he was strict. Before I died, he actually treated her like a daughter. Ja, I believed him to be overprotective, but that was the man he was."
"Considering he took advantage of your daughter," Clara began, "I don't think I'd be so sure about that. Yes, he may have been a good person once but…like you said, the drinking ruined him…and when you died…"
"Ja," Britta sighed somberly. "Well, the past is past. It is ten minutes of six. You have not told us why this young man is coming."
"Well, I don't know if I told you," Amy began, "but Tate is his dad. I figured it all out."
"What?!" Clara asked, nearly dropping the stack of napkins on the floor. Britta turned her head sharply to look at the young, gorgeous witch as she continued.
"Look, I know it sounds fucked up, but the last time I was at his house, his grandma kept saying how she had one son that was 'normal', and the other two were screwed up in some way. Then I put two and two together and…yeah. I figured it out. Michael even looks like Tate! Just wait and see when—"
Ding-Dong!
"Oh, that must be him," Clara muttered.
"I'll answer it," Amy said, walking out of the kitchen and down the hall to the front entrance.
Upon opening the door, she saw Michael smiling down at her casually, but there was a hidden sparkle in his olive-green eyes. It did not look suspicious, however, but she looked at his clothing choice—he was dressed rather nicely for a neighborly dinner, wearing a black, collared dress shirt, matching slacks, and his shaggy blond hair rather neat-looking than usual. She herself had been wearing an indigo-colored, one-shoulder skater dress with black stockings and stiletto ankle boots. As she subconsciously returned his smile, she felt her heart melting—had he really meant it when he told her he loved her the night before? She had heard it too many times to actually believe it was a real thing.
"Hey," he said. "You look lovely."
"Oh, uh, thank you," Amy smirked, moving aside. "Come on in. Dinner's being cooked."
Entering the house had given Michael the strangest vibe, a chill of fear intense enough to make his body shake once or twice as he was seated in the dining room. Once dinner had been ready, Britta and Clara served the food neatly on dishes arranged especially for the event. Amy looked down and nearly pushed the plate away—boiled vegetables looked as tasteless as the dishwater-like broth that had shared the pot with them. However, it was a relief to know that Moira, who had vanished for their privacy, made garlic mashed potatoes and crushed cranberries to make a sauce. It definitely compensated for the plain-tasting boiled vegetables—Michael still was polite and tried to eat as well as he could.
"Amy, you said you knew something about my parents," he said when the meal had ended. He glanced at the young, gorgeous blonde witch, who glanced at a paisley-clad Clara and then at Britta, who sat at the head of the table with her peridot eyes on the young man invited to their house.
"I do," she said. "Well, we do."
"Amy—" Clara was cut off.
"Well, let's hear it," Michael said. "I know my grandma won't tell me."
"Your dad is dead," the blonde said.
"I knew it."
"And your mom…well, she died in childbirth having you," Amy continued.
"How do you know?" he asked skeptically, taking the last sip of his beverage.
"Because I've met him. His name is Tate," the witch explained.
"We're friends with him," Clara added. "I bet he'll be appearing shortly."
There was a moment of silence that was almost too awkward for words—Michael looked around, his eyes focused on Amy and Clara while Britta stared at him coldly.
"Well, this is a joke if I've ever seen one," he said emotionlessly, standing up in his seat before making his way to the dining room doorway.
In a rapid succession, the three witches got up from their seats and followed Michael, who was greeted by the eerie image of an older woman standing at the bottom of the staircase. Her hair was long and wavy, a shade of light, honey brown that looked like Violet's. Her face was very mature-looking with slight wrinkling, light slate-blue eyes, and thin lips painted with light mauve gloss. The woman, who the witches recognized as Violet's mother, Vivien, was also wearing a simple, v-neck black tank top and a pair of dark blue jeans. Michael just stared at the figure, moving slowly toward it with the witches behind him.
"You look…familiar," the woman's ghost said.
"Who are you?" Michael asked nervously.
"I am Vivien," she introduced. "Who are you?"
"M-Michael."
"Michael," Vivien repeated pensively. "I've heard that name before. Do you live next door?"
"I actually do. How do you…"
Michael turned to look at the three witches inhabiting the house—Amy's sapphire eyes looked long and hard at them, curious to see if their interaction would go any further. Clara looked confused, putting her hands on her hips as she furrowed her dark, defined eyebrows inward. Britta, however, looked calm and detached, her peridot-green eyes looking at the ghost of the deceased woman and the living young man.
"Amy…is this her?" he asked.
"Ask her."
"Did you give birth to me and die after?" Michael asked, turning his olive-green eyes to the ghost at the bottommost step of the staircase.
"Yeah, I did," Vivien stated, a gasp coming from Amy in the background—I knew it, the witch thought as she listened. "There were twins. You were the surviving one. Dr. Montgomery said you devoured your twin in the womb."
"What?" everyone asked in unison—Michael still had questions. "But how?!"
"It's a strange situation," Vivien said. "You were Tate's child when he raped me, and the other was Ben, my husband's, child. The whole time, I believed they were Ben's, but…that definitely wasn't him in the rubber latex suit."
"Where is…uh…Tate?" Michael questioned, moving past Vivien to walk up the stairs. The three witches scurried behind him, following him slowly up the stairs with Britta leading Clara and Amy. She got an unfortunate whiff of cologne—it was strong enough to make her nearly gag. Upon reaching the top of the stairs, the four saw the image of Tate and Violet holding each other in a loving embrace—Vivien had come up to join them, and Michael could notice the grimace on her face; she had been raped, after all. Amy and Clara both spoke up, looking at the young, dead couple as they looked into each other's eyes.
"Oh, uh, Tate? Violet?" Clara asked.
"We have a guest here for you, Tate," Amy finished. "Michael is his name. He's your son."
"What?"
The image of the tow-headed, brown-eyed teenaged boy looked toward the young man of twenty-five, turning his head as he walked closer. Looking to see that he was well-dressed, he suddenly recalled the rubber latex suit Vivien had mentioned to the four downstairs without him present. He had worn that very ensemble while raping her, as well as during his brutal murders of Chad Warwick and his boyfriend Patrick. Suddenly, Clara could sense a dangerously nervous feeling on the ghost's person as a smug look wiped across his face—yet Michael seemed to be almost refusing to believe the fact.
"Is this a joke?" the man asked.
"Michael! Fucking listen to Tate!" Amy shouted, holding her hand out and getting aggravated with his questions.
"Nora didn't want you, Moira couldn't be your nanny or godmother, so my cocksucker mother took you in," Tate explained. "What else do you want to know, kid?"
"How could you be my dad if you're a teenager?" Michael asked with bewilderment.
"I hate talking about it," Tate replied haughtily, "especially since her daughter is in the room with us."
"I agree, because I'm finding it very hard to look at you," Vivien snapped, "because I want to bash it in so bad, Tate. Violet may have forgiven you, but I haven't."
"Go away, Violet," Amy ordered, pointing her finger at the ghost of the teenaged girl.
"Why?"
"I said, go away!" the blonde witch screeched "Let us have alone time!"
"No, I won't," Violet stated stubbornly.
"You will!" Amy raised her finger and directed it firmly at the ghost. "Don't make me drop a house on you!"
"Girls! Enough!" Britta commanded in her soft Nordic accent. "I will not have this!"
"Stay out of this, old lady!" Amy screeched, grabbing Violet by the wrist and pulling her away; she had suddenly become tangible, not like the typical ghost. "Now, you get out of here until we call you back!"
"We've been here longer!"
"And we live here now!" the witch argued.
"Let me go, Amy!" Violet begged.
"Stop it!" Tate commanded, charging Amy as she was forced to let her go by a sudden thrust of the teenaged ghost's hands on her lower shoulders.
Yet this would be a terrible move on his part—the young, blonde witch screamed in fright as she felt herself tumbling backwards over the thick, wooden railing near the stairs. Britta gasped, running toward the railing she had fallen over with Clara as they stared down to the foyer to see that Amy's screams had been silenced with a hard thud to the floor. Michael, who, on the surface, barely expressed emotions when people got injured, was the first to run down the stairs with Clara right behind him. The three ghosts stayed at the top of the stairs, including Tate; he showed no remorse for pushing Amy as he heard the commotion downstairs.
"Amy! AMY!" the blonde's older sister shouted, calling for a response as she rushed toward the lifeless body to notice her neck was in an unusual position. Her raven black hair draped down her face as she took Amy's body gently into her lap only to hear the start of Britta's mournful sobs and a strange cracking noise coming from the motionless form of her sister. Michael knelt next to the two witches, seeing Amy's neck a livid blue at the sight where it bent abnormally.
"It looks like…s-she broke her neck," he said.
"NEI!" Britta shouted, tears running from her eyes as she noticed bruise-like abrasions on the freshly-injured corpse. "NEI!
"I…I c-can't heal this!" Clara wept, her blue eyes sparkling with thick, wet tears that only rolled down her cheeks and onto the body. "Oh no! No! NO! AMY! NO!"
Michael reached for the wrist of Amy's dead body, feeling that there was no pulse as he shook his head.
"N-No…no…she's gone," he muttered, struggling to hold back tears he thought would never form in the first place.
"Nei…n-nei!" Britta wept, feeling her heart in her throat as she held Clara closely. "C-Can you return her…s-soul?"
"I'm a-afraid to," Clara whispered. "I-I can't heal a broken neck. If I d-do resurgence, she may d-die again…I…I'm afraid! OH GOD! AMY! NO!"
As the three mourned Amy's sudden, tragic death, they had not been aware that Violet walked down to the bottom of the stairs with empathetic tears in her honey-brown eyes. Her lips, usually a rosy color, became pale with grief as she sniffled sadly, letting out a few weeps. Amy had been a very good friend to her, and they had talked quite often. Now that she was dead, would she be trapped in the house along with the rest of those who had died over the years? Or would Britta's descriptions of another realm specifically for their bloodline prove true to her soul?
Either way, Tate had promised never to kill again when she took him back—she glanced up to see that her mother had vanished, but her boyfriend looked remorseless as she stared down at the two crying witches and his grown son. He is not sorry, she thought through tears and a heavy heart, he broke his promise.
A/N:
Very intense chapter, folks! Say, what will happen to Amy now—will she be trapped in the Murder House along with the rest of the ghosts? Or is Britta right about the Other Side?
The answer is…who knows?
What we do know is that Violet is not happy with Tate AT ALL!.
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