The kid seemed fascinated with the book without being unhealthily obsessed. She still spent her weekdays following her normal routine.
As far as he could figure that was going to school every day. It was her extracurricular activities that were so much fun. Mondays and Tuesdays she always came home just in time for dinner. He knew because he could watch her dash up the stairs from her open door, her parents yelling up after her.
Wednesdays she would come home on time, but he had no idea what she was doing. He didn't think she was spending it with her parents or watching TV. Wasn't her style.
Thursdays she spent at her desk drawing. Luckily for him, her desk was attached to his mirror. Beetlejuice never missed a Thursday. He would sit and watch her draw for hours. Usually they were designs for clothes, but when she was feeling particularly whimsical she would draw the grossest monsters. He'd only seen worse in the Neitherworld.
Fridays she spent in her room watching old-school horror movies. The kind where you could see the strings the UFOs dangled from. Or the hand inside the monster's mouth. But Beetlejuice agreed with the kid – they were classic and still managed to pack a good scare with careful use of subtlety.
It was Fridays and Thursdays that Beetlejuice was always tempted to mess with the girl. He thought about making her drawings move around on their pages. He thought about changing her favorite scenes in movies. She knew them well enough that she'd notice the changes.
But he never did any of the things he wanted.
This was still all about getting out.
Now that she had the book she changed her weekend plans. Every Saturday, instead of spending the day avoiding her mother, Lydia pretended to leave and snuck back into her room to study the book all day.
After getting caught once she set up a hidey-hole in her closet and tucked herself into the dark for hours.
Only a couple of weeks passed before the book was filled with underlined and highlighted spells. Pages were carefully dog-eared and dog-eared again if the spell was one she really wanted to try.
Less than a month after her birthday she tried the first of her spells. It was mid-November and just starting to get really cold. She found a fern near her house and breathed the spell over it. She also sprinkled some herbs and drew a circle in candlewax. All of that stuff was crap, but Beetlejuice thought it added a nice effect.
It was unusual for someone to try a growth spell before the other spells, but he didn't think it was that abnormal. She was still in the beginnings stages of her testing.
He kept the fern alive through December before getting bored.
She cried when she found it dead.
She didn't give up on the book though. She tried other little spells. Things that helped others more often than not. There was one spell about keeping warm that she cast on the nest of some roosting birds. She used locating spells on nuts for local squirrels.
Beetlejuice didn't really know what to make of this. She filled her room with the kind of creepy, dark stuff that he could really appreciate. But then she was a total softie when she thought no one was looking. He didn't know what to make of the kid.
The spells didn't always work. He told himself it was because it wasn't good to let the kid think she was God. Really it was because he got distracted and forgot to release his juice sometimes.
One of the times he wasn't paying attention she found a cat with a broken leg.
He meandered into her mirror after a week-long scam and found her hunched over the book repeating the spell for healing over and over. She was clutching a little black bundle in her arms. It wasn't moving and Beetlejuice assumed the worst. He couldn't heal death and wasn't going to waste his magic trying.
But she looked so distraught and this seemed like the perfect chance…
As he turned his attention to his book he could feel the wet saltiness of her tears on the page. He could use them to help bind himself to her, but didn't feel comfortable pulling that trick on a crying little kid. Instead he just flipped the page to the one he wanted.
Lydia gasped and rocked back. The little bundle in her arms still didn't move.
After a minute of reading the tears began to dry on her face. She looked away in thought. Then she read it again.
If he'd thought her tears were bad minutes ago he was in for a horrific surprise.
Sobbing so hard she could barely breathe the kid kicked the book into a corner and put the bundle on her bed up near her pillows. She began stroking it to try to calm down. It was the familiar petting gesture that finally told him what she'd been crying over. It was just some stupid cat.
He huffed angrily and turned from the mirror. He hated crying kids and women. So he decided to come back when she'd gotten over it.
In actuality he couldn't make himself stay away as long as he'd meant to. It was less than a week before he was back in her mirror.
He had to wait a few hours for the kid to come home from school, but was shocked to find her whistling when she did. He quickly found out why when a tiny meow came from under her bed.
"Percy! What are you doing under there again? I promise nothing will happen to you inside this house silly!" She giggled as she coaxed the cat out.
The little pest had a cast on one leg, but seemed fine overall. Beetlejuice was surprised. Apparently he should trust the kid's judgement a little more.
Now it was too late for him to help the cat's healing process along. The window to release his juice had closed. He just hoped he could find another way to prove himself to her. She needed to use that spell he'd showed her.
Beetlejuice was thinking over this conundrum in his favorite chair when he felt the urgent need to shield. This urge was so natural to him that he did it without thinking… and was nastily surprised when the shield didn't snap up around him.
Pulling away from his thoughts quickly Beetlejuice looked for the source of the trouble before it could come down on his head. Nothing seemed to be threatening him.
Finally it occurred to him to look inward to find the problem.
After a few minutes of probing he figured out it was his link to the book. It took another thirty seconds for him to realize the implications of that.
By the time he got to the mirror to check on the kid he had already figured out he wasn't going to see anything. If the kid had used the particular spell it was because she needed it. Because the ingredient for that spell was pure, unadulterated panic.
Beetlejuice spent almost an hour pacing back and forth in front of the mirror.
He was so anxious that he almost missed her entrance.
She was walking almost silently and appeared to be trying to sneak in without anyone noticing. He wasn't sure why she was bothering. Her parents would see the bruises on her wrists as soon as she went down to dinner. Maybe not the huge gash on her leg though, if she was careful.
Suddenly Beetlejuice was furious.
This little breather with her dark heart of gold was being bullied. It made him want to strangle something. He abruptly found himself wondering what his shield had saved her from if this was what had happened before it went up.
With the tiniest sigh possible she gently settled herself and her book on the bed. She began slowly unpacking it. Two textbooks… and then his book.
If he'd known she had started taking it to school with her he would have paid more attention to it. That was where all the good stuff happened.
She flipped the book open almost absently. Like it was one of her textbooks and she was just getting ready to complete an assignment. But she just stared at it blankly. Right up until he flipped the book to the healing spell.
Her eyes got wide and she looked towards her window. Closed. She turned back to the book with a glare. "You didn't work last time for poor Percy. Why should I try you now?" With that she turned over what seemed to be a random number of pages.
He turned it back.
This seemed to enrage her. She slammed the book shut and threw it at the wall.
He slowed the impact and opened it right back.
Lydia couldn't seem to help herself. She walked over to check. When she saw it, looking like it was even written in a bigger font, she sighed. "I don't even care about this stuff. I'll heal. Why do you care now when you didn't care about poor little Percy."
Tears started sliding down her face. He wasn't sure she even noticed until with an annoyed grimace she wiped the thing away. "Fine. We'll do it your way. But, and I mean it, that spell better work every time I use it from now on."
The page fluttered gently. She wasn't sure if it was agreement or frustration.
With one last sigh she knelt and recited the spell. She didn't bother with all the extra stuff.
She gasped as she felt the gash on her leg close up. Reaching down to feel for a scab or any sign it had been there at all she noticed that her wrists were completely blemish free. "How -" She shook her head. "Doesn't matter. Remember the deal."
From that day on she used the healing spell all the time. An injured bird, squirrel, mouse. Anything and everything.
He still didn't let all the spells work, but she didn't seem to care as long as the one that allowed her to heal worked.
It was perhaps this and two other very interesting facts that finally made Beetlejuice realize that this was the girl he hadn't known he'd been looking for.
The first was a day early in her summer break when she came home with a bird. It obviously had a sprained wing, but she hadn't said the healing spell yet. In fact, the wing was splinted and the bird was set in a comfortable box with a bit of seed. It looked like the bird was ready for a fairly lengthy stay.
Frowning Beetlejuice wiggled his book free from her backpack and opened it to the healing page.
Lydia laughed when she noticed. "Thanks, but no thanks. I've been doing some research and I don't think it's healthy for them to heal so instantaneously. Their bones don't strengthen enough."
Beetlejuice was floored. Who didn't take the easy way out? What was with this kid?
The second event – much more important in Beetlejuice's mind – was actually a lack of an event. She never tried to get revenge. At least not using her book of spells. And there were definitely some spells in his book for getting revenge.
Those pages didn't even have anything underlined.
Every once in a while she would come home with scrapes and bruises and he still had to shield her at least once a month. He would insist that she heal them, but that was the end of it.
Once he tried to convince her to pull a prank. Instead of getting excited about the idea or even offended (soft-hearted people could be so weird,) she had laughed. It was a good laugh. It came from the diaphragm and left her gasping. When she was able to breathe again she was still giggling "She deserves it, but I'm happier just being the better person."
Beetlejuice was floored… again.
This kid was driving him crazy. She wouldn't go for his best ideas. She didn't take advantage of his magic. And she talked to the book like it was a sentient being. She was like a frickin' saint and he didn't even know if he was allowed to mess with her kind.
He grinned his familiar manic, evil grin.
Whether he was allowed to or not wouldn't stop him.
This girl was his ticket. And he was going to enjoy every minute of the ride.
A/N: Please don't start expecting updates this fast all the time. I've just been feeling inspired this week thanks to WithoutHesitation's stories.
Normally I move at a much slower pace. However, ALL STORIES WILL BE FINISHED. No matter how long it takes me.