Six months later…

"Britta, you're not buying baby toys already, are you?"

Amy had just begun to show by April, and with every day of being pregnant, she wanted nothing more than to just give birth to it. Her breasts, already large and ample, were so swollen with milk that her bras couldn't even accommodate their size anymore. Her hips and buttocks had filled out evenly as her belly grew, but her pregnant womb sat lower on her body than average. Everytime she saw the young woman waddling down the hallway, Britta just giggled, remembering her natural life when she was pregnant numerous times during her married life.

"Nei," the Swede answered.

"There's a red ball on the floor," the pregnant witch replied, leaning down carefully to pick it up. Just when it came into her grasp, she looked up to see that the attic latch door was partially open. When Britta came along, that was the first thing she noticed.

"What is up there?" she questioned.

"I think…it's an attic," Amy answered. "You know what's weird? I've never gone up into that attic since moving here."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe that is where the ball comes from?" Britta thought.

The short-statured Swede reached an arm up and hopped up just enough to make the latch door budge wide open with a retractable ladder being levied down by her delicate hands. Amy moved aside, her hand on her pregnant belly, and attempted to climb up to the uppermost floor of the house.

"Nei, nei," Britta protested, her arm keeping the younger witch back. "You stay."

"Britta, I'm fine," Amy said, making eye contact with her great-grandmother.

"You will fall and hurt the baby if you come," the Swede said. "You stay here."

"Ugh, fine," the young woman replied, rolling her murky blue eyes back as Britta began to climb.

The attic was dark, but once Britta stepped both shoed feet on the thick, aged wooden planks, she held out her hand and concentrated enough to summon a white orb of light with a bluish tint in order to help her see. In her other hand she held the red ball that had mysteriously fallen from the latch door leading up to the darkest upper floor. From what she could see, she saw the silhouette of what looked like an ornate dollhouse, a chest made of dark wood that was locked with a padlock, and an old baby crib filled with dusty blankets and a worn mattress. As soon as she came far enough into the attic area, she heard a low grunting sound and the rattling of a chain. Curious, she held the orb of light out in front of her and gasped at the sight accompanied by the sound.

"Nnnghh…"

Her eyes widened at the sight of a gruesomely-deformed young man with scraggly black hair, blue eyes spaced too far apart, a large nose with too big of a bridge, parted lips to show his disarrayed, uneven, short baby teeth, a short, thick forehead, and a chin with a distinct dimple indented in the center. Britta just stared in shock, shaking her head softly as she realized that the sound of his voice was akin to that of someone with mental retardation. For a moment, the deformed young man rattled his cuffed wrists, connected to chains at the headboard of an iron-frame bed.

"Oh, herregud," the Swede muttered, seeing the deformed face's mouth open and rattle its chains to non-verbally beg for release from his confines.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"Nnnghhh," the deformed young man grunted.

"I cannot understand."

"Ngh-" He seemed to prepare to talk, but his speech was slurring. "Play."

"Play?" Britta asked, realizing that she was holding the red ball that had fallen from the ceiling; she held it up and looked at him. "Do you want this?"

A strange, hideous smile streaked across his deformed face as he nodded, but Britta sat next to him and gestured for him to put his hands out, but it was no easy task—he was literally chained to the iron bed frame.

"Let me get you out," she said. "Is there a key?"

There wasn't one around, so she took one of the pins out of her crown braid and used her teeth to separate the prongs, dipping it into the hole and working the shackles loose to free the ugly young man.

"How terrible," she said in her mother tongue, "only a monster would lock someone like you up in a place like this."

The deformed face just stared at her after seeing that his confines had been removed, hearing the strange language being spoken by the witch.

"You probably didn't even do anything wrong," Britta continued in Swedish. "You were locked up simply because you were different."

The young man, his sad, innocent blue eyes staring at the lovely, youthful Nordic witch, listened to her even though he couldn't understand her language. Britta, however, got the hint that she should speak English.

"Oh, foolish of me," she said, switching tongues. "You are an innocent soul." Her small hand reached for his face, his skin somewhat smooth as it stretched across his deformed facial structure. "You only have the weight of the world on you because it was simply put there. In fact, you remind me of someone I used to know a long, long time ago."

Jupiter, Florida

December 4, 1953

As she walked backstage to finally escape the roaring clapping of the audience, Britta felt a knot unravel in her stomach. She had performed with the troupe of sideshow performers for close to a month, and she was gaining sensational popularity with the people of the small town of Jupiter. Fraulein Elsa's Cabinet of Curiosities, which had previously been struggling to keep their unique stage shows alive, was saved by the exhibitions of Britta's telekinetic talents. People from all over the state had come just to see her rare abilities in action, and she had even gained a positive reputation with the rest of the troupe, including the founder and ringleader, German expatriate Elsa Mars.

The older woman, perhaps in her late forties or early fifties, had approached her quicker than she could catch a breath in. She was distinguishable by her sky blue pantsuit, flamboyantly garish makeup, curling strawberry blonde coif, and thick German accent accompanied by a strong presence.

"Wunderbar," she said with a proud smile, placing her hands on her small, petite shoulders. "They loved you."

"Oh…" Britta had still been working on her English skills, but she nodded expressionlessly and gave her brief input. "Tack."

"Someone has a gift they want to give to you," Elsa said proudly, moving aside to let one of the carnies, a similar height to Britta herself, waddle forward with a great smile on her face.

Pepper was her name—she had microcephaly, being exhibited as one of the Pinheads in her own act with Salty, a man with the same condition. She was highly unattractive, but she couldn't help it; aside from this and looking past it, she had something about her that would light up a room when she entered it. She had an aura of folly, of joy, of childlike wonder. Her head was conically-shaped and topped with a small patch of hair tied with a pink silk ribbon. When she smiled, it was grandiose and huge with large, yellowing bucked teeth showing themselves whenever she did. She was wearing a simple pink frock, and Britta looked at her hands to see she was holding a small, periwinkle blue-colored flower by its delicate stem.

"Britta pretty," she smiled as the young woman with the golden crown braid accepted her generous, small gift. "Play with me!"

"She can after the show," Elsa promised. "Maybe read you a bedtime story?" Her hazel-brown eyes looked at the young Swede intensely. "It'll be good practice."

"J-Ja," she said. "It will be. I will read…to her."

"Wunderbar," Elsa said, walking off before the sound of a young male voice caught her attention. Turning around, she could feel the crinoline of her simple skirt flow around her legs smoothly.

"And's that's Britta Nordlund, everybody! Give it up!"

It was Jimmy, and she could see through the brightness of the spotlight his handsome face. He had auburn-brown hair with excessive gel in the front with a few curls, but he was showcased for his syndactyly—fingers split and fused together to create a unique deformity. He had seemed to work hard at befriending the beautiful young Nordic woman brought to America just a month before by Elsa.

She noticed him look in her direction and wink—she did not respond.

"Pepper was a gift…" Britta said, finishing her telling of a story from the past. "A…benediction. A soul so pure it is rare in this world."

The deformed young man seemed to smile slightly, his face contorting in a strange way to express his interest in what she was saying.

"And she reminded me of you," she finished.

The Swede stood up from the bed, and held out her hand to help him up. As soon as he took her hand, she led him toward the latch door and extended retractable ladder.

"Here," she said. "You down first. You will not be trapped anymore."

The young man seemed to display difficulty climbing down the retractable ladder, and Britta noticed that as soon as he reached the midpoint, he began to disappear into thin air. Gasping with shock and worry at the innocence she had just met, she felt terrible.

But she couldn't help it—he was just a ghost. His name was never revealed, but it was Beauregard Langdon.

During the final three months of Amy's pregnancy, Britta encouraged the young woman to go up in the attic and play with the spirit of Beauregard, who was trapped up there. He could only say a few words, but Amy took to him with kindness. Previously being self-centered and conceited to a large degree, she felt a flower blooming within. Yes, Beauregard was hideously ugly, but he had been born that way—he couldn't help it.

Meanwhile, the baby had been kicking so hard that the expectant mother could've sworn the baby kicked a rib or her entrails around. As the cravings increased, the nausea only got worse, making her throw up once every two days or so at most.

The ghosts in the house, especially Moira, Nora, Violet, Vivien, and Chad had all been there for Amy when she was sick, alternating one at a time to check on her if Britta was out running errands or doing something else.

Yet she had not seen Tate for the entire time—she definitely suspected something. Either he was too guilty for pushing her over the railing months before, or he had done something terrible. What if he had killed Clara?

And what about Michael? He had been a thought on her mind at least once a day. She had killed him, yes—but what of his afterlife? Where had he gone? Was he still haunting the cemetery in which he died? Was his body festering like she declared it would, unpreserved by formaldehyde and six feet under?

His face had appeared in several nightmares starting at six months pregnant. He was not particularly hurting her, but handling her roughly with passionate embraces and anger-fueled kisses. Before he could do anything else, she would always wake up to Nora, a white bathrobe over her ghostly form, looking down at her with concern.

"Are you alright?" she had asked, her cold hand cooling her sweaty forehead down.

"Just a nightmare," Amy answered, her murky eyes looking up at the ghost and her angelic face.

"Of who?"

"Michael." Amy paused for a moment before explaining who it was. "Tate's son."

"You've been having a lot of dreams with him lately," Nora noticed. "Did you love him?"

"Very briefly," Amy said. "It actually…sucks."

"Huh?" Nora took her hand away from the pregnant woman's forehead, hearing her sigh as she gave her input.

"Every night, I've prayed that his face would fade away," the blonde witch explained, "but everytime I try to fall asleep, I see his face." Amy began to sob tearlessly, anxiety getting to her as she continued, gripping the front of Nora's white bathrobe. "He haunts me, Nora! He haunts me!"

"What? But why?" the 1920's-era resident asked. "He didn't even die in this house."

"No," Amy answered, sitting up carefully as she put her hand on her pregnant, restlessly-kicking belly. "I killed him."

"What? How?" Nora questioned worriedly.

"He deserved it," the witch justified. "He had it coming. He was no better than his father. He was a killer just like Tate, only worse. He killed his own grandmother, for god's sake. He was obsessed with me. He raped my sister. That was the final straw. I used my necrokinesis on him and he fell right into an open coffin. I made the grave diggers bury him deep so he could rot."

"Your sister…" Nora muttered sadly. "A tragedy."

"Wait," Amy cut in, "have you seen her? I haven't once seen her float around here. I thought spirits get trapped in this house when this is the place of their death."

"N-No," the woman replied, shaking her head. "She is in limbo, somewhere. I don't know where. I do know…who killed her."

Amy's eyes widened, staring up at the ghost intensely as she watched Nora stand up and fix the front of her nightclothes.

"Who?"

"Tate," the ghost shared softly with misery in her voice. The witch just gulped, trying to control the fire within as the sensation of her kicking fetus distracted her from the fury of the moment.

During the final month of Amy's pregnancy, she and Britta had watched Greta Garbo films that were close to a century old. The century-old witch explained who she was, and why she had been so renowned for her roles in various films. She also went into detail about how, due to her strict Christian upbringing by her foster family, she was not allowed to go to the movies and watch them for herself. Britta had finally gotten to see them about thirty to forty years after their initial releases in the 1920s and 1930s, but to share this part of Swedish culture with her great-granddaughter was a bonding experience.

One night they had selected Anna Christie, a film in which Garbo plays the role of a woman with a dishonorable past—working in a brothel as a prostitute.

Yes, it reminded of Britta's time on the Other Side observing the behavior of her daughter, Elina, but it was still a timeless classic.

The two had shared popcorn and a short discussion during one of Garbo's monologues as the titular character—her accent was very thick and sounded hard and vulgar.

'I do vat I please, and no man, I don't give a darn who he is, can tell me vat to do. I'll make it myself, van vay or anozer. I am my own buss, so put zat in your pipe and shmoke it!'

"Wow, she got balls," Amy whispered.

"Ja," Britta smirked. "She was one of few actresses who made their change from silent to sound."

"You seem like you would've been good at this," Amy said, crunching on a handful of the buttery popcorn between them. The Swede just shook her head and drank from her glass of water.

"Nei, nei, not a chance," she giggled, listening to the rest of the character's monologue.

'Dessent? Who told you I vas? Vell, living vith you is enough to drive anyvan nuts! Didn't I vrite you year after year about how horrible life vhas? Or did you not even care, not even enough to see me? You yust didn't vant to be bozered vith me. But van zing I never told you, vas van of zem cousins zhat you zink are such nice people. Zhey pushed me around. And it vas none of my fault! I hated zhem and zey knew it! But he vas big and shtrong, like you…and zhat is vhy I run away from ze farm."

"I didn't catch that," Amy expressed, stuffing her face with more popcorn.

"Me neither," Britta replied.

"But you're the Swedish person, here," her great-granddaughter stated. "Didn't you sound like this when you came here?"

"Greta was from Stockholm," the century-old explained. "I was born is Visby, but raised mostly in Kiruna. They are all different dialects. Gotland is its own, and Kiruna dialect sounds a little Finnish. My accent…was heavy when I came here, but not like hers."

"But what about your kids? Did they have accents?" Amy questioned.

"Nei," Britta replied. "They talked like their pappa. They grew speaking Svenska with me."

"Britta," Amy began, "just a question. Would you ever go back to Sweden?"

"Oh…" The youthful old Swede looked down at her youthful hands, her perfect fingernails brushing against the black skirt of her dress. "I would. What do I have to lose?"

The two continued to listen to Greta Garbo on the black and white picture of the television, listening closely to understand her heavy accent.

'Zhey veren't looking for marriage. You don't say nozhing. Neizher van of you, but I know vhat you're thinking. And who's to blame? Me, or you?! If you been a regular fazher, things vould have been different! I vas no nurse for two years! I lied vhen I vrote to you! I vas in a house! Ja, zhat kind of a house! Zhere vere sailors in and out of zhere! You are no better! Just like all zhe men! I HATE ZHEM! I HATE MEN!"

"Ahhh…."

Britta's attention was caught by the sound of Amy groaning in agony, seeing a vague image of wet clothes below the waist. Her peridot eyes widened at the sight, biting her lower lip to keep calm as the television continued the movie and she scooted closer to her great-granddaughter to put her small, cool hand on her forehead.

"Oh…" the Swede muttered.

"Ahh, I-I…" Amy couldn't speak—the pain in her swollen abdomen was gripping her ability to speak.

"It is time," Britta whispered. "Baby is coming."

"DR. MONTGOMERY!" the young witch called out, screaming at the top of her lungs. "OW! It hurts!"

"Shh, shh," her youthful great-grandmother lulled. "Do not scream. It hurts, but you must go through it. Here, stand."

The woman stood in order to help Amy to her own feet, but the young woman's agony was enough to make her hunch her back forward, crying and struggling to move as she felt more fluid pour down her legs and through her underwear. The pain was almost at the same level of a thousand knives stabbing through her, and she even thought that the intensity of the pain was making her hallucinate, as the figure of a middle-aged man appeared at the doorway of the living room. His face was slightly weathered, and his brown hair was parted down the middle and slightly messed up. He had a blank look on his face, but when Britta took note of his presence there, she noticed him wearing clean white scrubs.

"Is it time?" the ghost of Nora's doctor husband asked.

"Ja, please sir," Britta answered, trying to stabilize an anguished Amy as she held her swollen abdomen. "We need to get her somewhere. You are a doctor?"

"Yes, I am. Come down to the basement," Dr. Montgomery commanded, holding out his arms toward the expectant mother. "Here, come."

"I…can't give birth here!" Amy complained. "It isn't safe!"

"We'll make it safe," Charles stated. "I'm a doctor."

"No! I need to get to the—" Just when she was trying to complete her sentence, she felt an intense contraction ripping through her core." AH! OW!"

"She must be crowning," the doctor assumed expertly. "It's too late for the hospital. You need to come down here."

"Min älskling," Britta whispered worriedly, "you have not a choice. You must go. I will not leave you. I will be here. I promise you…"

A/N:

So you all thought Clara would be the one to live and give birth. I'd quote Madison Montgomery with "surprise, bitch", but I don't want to be rude. Wait, I just did it…never mind!

Did any of you catch the reference to the title and the song after which it's named when Amy has the nightmare? If you did, points to you!

FUN FACT: Anna Christie, the 1930 film starring Swedish actress Greta Garbo, is referenced in this chapter. This was actually her first "talkie" film, as she gained popularity during the silent film era. Not many foreign actors made the transition from silent films to films with sound, as most had to learn English in order for viewers to understand them. Garbo was one of the best-known of these actresses despite having a really heavy accent.

I'd appreciate Reviews, so let's see what you think?

Stay tuned! :3