Born to Die

October 2012

Several years had passed since Doctor Lucas and his daughter moved out of the Murder House. For months, Emma would return to her old home and slide an envelope under the front door. The name Tate Langdon was written on the front with no stamp or return address. It wasn’t that the ghost did not know where his love had been taken- she wrote the address on his chalkboard and left a roll of stamps on the desk, but it was that he simply did not know how to answer.

The first few letters spoke of therapy, medication, and what seemed to be a road to recovery. It was around the fifth and sixth letter that Tate really noticed the difference in tone. They went from hopeful to hopeless. The bubbly handwriting was replaced with chicken scratch penmanship. The length of each letter dwindled down to the point where they stopped arriving.

Peeking behind the lace curtains, Tate would watch the brunette leave his letter. Each passing month, she looked more beautiful than the last. The last letter arrived on Emma’s birthday with a one simple message- Forever Seventeen. Those two words rang through Tate’s whole being. He folded the letter and now roamed the house with the weight of those words in his pocket.

Despite the unknown fate of his love, Tate continued on his mission for Nora. The blonde had killed the previous tenants- Chad and Patrick, to make room for a family who would hopefully bring a baby into the world for Mrs. Montgomery. There was small buzz of a new family coming to look at the house as Halloween rolled around.

Tate spent his afternoon sitting on a lawn chair in the backyard, a notebook tightly in his clutches. Wandering through the backyard from her own quarters, Moira took a deep sigh and shifted her purse a bit higher on her shoulder.

“I’m heading out. Would you like to come with me?” The older housekeeper gave her fellow ghost a sad smile as she tilted her head to the fence gate.

Tate gave a simple, “No”, his eyes never reading the notebook’s pages.

Moria tucked a stay piece of fiery red hair behind her ear, “It’s been four years since she’s left. It’s time for you to start moving on, Tate. Get a fresh start, meet some new girls.” He looked up and saw a young Moira still in her prime.

A permeant frown was etched on Tate’s face as he sat at a park bench and watched people from behind his dark sunglasses. Seventeen years later and people were still talking about what he had done. He slouched slightly, leaning against the back of the bench, and played with the lose hem of his sleeve.

“You know, if you keep pulling at it, your whole sweater will unravel.”

The feeling. The sound. The smell. The voice.

Everything about the brunette came flooding back as Tate turned around to see himself facing a long lost face. Tate smiled as he realized just how well four years did for the brunette. Emma shifted uncomfortably from her spot behind the bench and pulled her sunglasses down over her face. Everything about her was so different yet still the same as she was when she left the doomed Murder House.

Her hair was significantly longer, hitting the small of her back, and she seemed lankier. Before she pulled down her sunglasses from the top of her head, Tate couldn’t help but notice how dead her face looked, the smile never reaching her eyes. His eyes dropped to her collar bone- prominent and cut up.

Emma pulled her hair forward to cover the obvious scars, “You never wrote back to my letters.”

Tate nodded, “Yeah.” He wasn’t sure what to say. Reuniting with Emma was a moment he never thought he would have the chance of experiencing. Children in costumes were laughing in background. Time moved in slow motion.

“Happy Halloween, Tate.” Her voice was rough now. The soft innocence which Tate had once loved was gone and replaced with a coarse rasp, “I was wondering when you’d come out of hiding.”

He nodded and reached out taking her hand in his. The feeling of her gentle hand in his brought back something in Tate that had left the day she had. He smiled, the emotion finally reaching his eyes for the first time in years. As Tate led Emma back to the house that initially brought them back together, Emma finally spoke, addressing something that she knew was on his mind.

“After I dropped off that last letter, I tried to kill myself.” Like ripping off a bandaid, Emma was quick and straight to the point.

“What happened?” Tate asked, slight curiosity and concern in his voice.

Emma shook her head and smiled as the Murder House came into view, “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.” She ran to the front door and walked inside reveling in the feeling of all the spirits around the house. “You’re a smart kid, Tate. Use that brain of yours.”

Tate growled from behind the brunette, not appreciating the slightly condescending tone in her voice.

Tate gripped the knife tightly in his hand as he crept through the house. Patrick was standing by the sink filling up his water bottle while Chad was out trying to work on his garden in the backyard. The fighting had gotten to a point where adoption was taken off the table and the situation needed to be taken care of.

Two more feet and Tate would have been in arms length. One quick swipe and the problem would have been taken care of. A new family would move in, preferably with a baby or plans for one, and Tate would bring the baby down to Nora.

Instead, Chad came running into the house with a distraught look on his face. Out of breath, he nearly passed out as soon as he stepped through the doorway. “Girl... in the backyard. So much blood.”

Tate had since then vanished and returned the knife to its rightful spot. Chad had the car running and the body was being carried out to the driveway in Patrick’s arms. The blonde ghost walked out to the bloodstained grass and knew. He just knew.