Author: The Bitter Kitten

Fandom: Boardwalk Empire

Claim: Owen Sleator

Life is so much more simple when you're dead.

All of the big, hard questions like, "What do I want to do with my life?", Where do I want to live?, and "Will I be alone forever?" answered definitively, unchangeably, permanently until the end of time.

You exist in this house, with every other human that died here, until there's nothing left of the world but scorched rock and dust.

Sometimes Violet wished the end would hurry up and get here. 30 years had passed since she moved into Murder House, since she had taken a bottle-full of downers and died in a ghost's arms. Families had come and gone, and the lights and water flickered on and off through the years. It had been a while since they were on, she couldn't remember how long. They weren't strictly necessary, but the plod towards oblivion and the innate darkness of the house threatened to consume her whole when there wasn't Netflix or NYTimes. Time seemed to meld into one interminable, boring day.

It was long enough that all the bickering and plotting within the house and the steep divide between the tenants had gradually dissolved into apathy; the thick and sucking mud of resentment and grief and plain old personality clash had slowly dried into a cracked and arid wasteland of nothingness and couldn't-give-a-shit. They all milled about; they were waiting for a train that was never coming. Nora stopped appeariang around the house until Halloween, and even then she only sat out on the veranda, wishing for her baby, what the infantata used to be. Hayden and Vivien circled like dogs for a while, but eventually time wore them down and they found themselves warily drinking coffee together around the kitchen table. The unfortunate souls, the collateral damage (the exterminator; Gladys and Lorraine; the twins; Larry's little girls and his wife; Beau) all winked out, one by one, not to be seen for years on end, until she couldn't remember how long ago she'd seen any of them. Violet found herself on the same path. There would be times when she'd go to a dark, nameless place. It was hard to see and hard to move and the world shrank down to the sound of her breathing and force-of-habit heartbeat. She'd stay there for a while, until it felt like a wet, heavy blanket lifted and she opened her eyes again. Years would have passed, and it always took some doing to find the other ghosts afterwards.

Even she and Tate had reached a truce. It was five years ago now, twenty-five years since she had first wished him away. He'd popped up right in front of her in the hallway and wouldn't let her pass again . First he towered over her, fingers digging into her small shoulders, demanding redemption, keen as the first time so many years ago. Then he was on his knees, supplicant, clutching her thighs like a lost little boy, begging for her mercy. She was going to tell him to go away again, as she had hundreds of times before, but as she was calling up the rage needed to truly mean it; the hurt and horror, there wasn't any there. Oh, sure, the memories remained. She knew that he had slaughtered a high school library-full of people on a coke-fueled bid for suicide-by-cop. She knew he murdered Chad and Pat in cold blood for Nora. She knew he'd raped her mother, for Nora, again. But it was dim now, behind a window caked with ash. It was a book of old fairy tales that happened so long ago they might as well have never happened at all. She didn't care enough anymore. Besides, she was lonely. She missed him, missed those precious few months before she knew, when he was just a boy who showed her his scars.

"Get up, Tate."

He squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself for the rending, tearing wind of the curse to take him back to hell.

"I said get up, Tate, not go away." Her voice had been gentle.

He paused, still braced. He met her eyes, never looking younger or more lost in all the times he'd appeared to her. His bouncy blonde curls had framed dark eyes that were filled with tears and wonder. She'd smiled. "I forgive you," she'd whispered.

Though she'd forgiven him, she hadn't been keen on picking up where they'd left off. They had only just begun to flirt again. She'd find flowers on her desk and love letters on her chalkboard, and she'd leave a note here or there, a scavenger hunt that always led to her bed. It was fresh and new this time around; no talk of scars or encroaching darkness. They were made entirely of scar tissue now, consumed whole by the night, all of them, and the draw was the light they could find in each other.

Time spent with him was like rereading her favorite book; there were no surprises anymore. She knew all there was to know, and the experience was enjoyable just the same. She held his hand, nestled against his chest, breathing him in, and eternity here in this house didn't seem quite so bad.

It was early February, and it was cold. Not a Boston winter, which she had the faintest memory of, but it was drab and a chill that wasn't ghosts crept through the house. Wind howled through the cracks that appeared. On Valentine's Day, a chipper saleslady in a cheap pink skirt suit and 4-inch heels pulled up in a VW Bug. Everyone was bored without any link to the outside world, so they let her poke around, content to watch. She must have sensed them, because she didn't stay long at all, refused to go in the basement, and crossed herself twice before she ran out the door.

A few days later, a team of redecorators slapped new coats of paint on all the walls, except the chalkboard paint in Violet's room. They dusted the giant, ropey cobwebs from the high corners of the ceilings, and polished the hardwood floors until they shone.

The House watched; they waited. The lights flickered on, and the taps ran with clear water.

It was like blood in her veins, again. She felt closer to being alive.

Group by group, people trickled through. All the deaths had happened so long ago, there wasn't any reason for them to be scared. During open houses, they'd all mill about, fully visible, playing parts to amuse themselves. Ben and Vivien and Violet made up the perfect family, if they were out-of-date fashionwise. Tate and Violet were lovestruck teens daydreaming about a future. Hayden and Travis were ingenues- waiting to make it big, trying to live like they already had. Hayden and Vivien were girlfriends, making the worst mistake of their life. Chad and Pat just took notes, redecorating before they'd even heard the price.

Every other open house, they'd nick a tablet there, a cell phone here. Convenience overshadowed security, and almost every one they stole had banking information clear as day. Online shopping brought new technology in. A modem, a router. A big-screen plasma. A Keurig coffeemaker. Laptops for everyone. They switched accounts when fraud protection froze them, subtly directed police officers away from the basement when they came to check the address.

They were almost alive again. The House and all the ghosts inside bloomed like crocuses in icy snows.

The house finally closed, less than a quarter of the asking price. They all took bets on who it was, as the realtor lady slapped a "sold" sign on with a sidelong look at the house, and they waited.

The lady was old. Very old. She was small and cowed, with a spine deformed by osteoporosis and coarse, wiry shocks of white hair in stiff hair salon curls. With her was a devastatingly handsome young man who looked around with calculating eyes and seemed to see all of them, even when they chose not to be seen. It took the lady ages, but she climbed every step and set herself gingerly down on the new bed in the master bedroom.

"Moira, fetch me a glass of water, and be quick about."

The former maid snapped to attention and looked more closely. Yes, there was the proud jawline, the thin, sneering lips.

Constance had come home.