Chapter 11

Lydia stood stock still in the basement, where the recently renamed miscreant Beetlejuice had just disappeared. She bent over and examined the scorch mark burnt into the carpet from his dramatic exit.

Did that really just happen? she wondered. But the proof was there in the form of a black mark on HER floor, that refused to be moved, no matter how she blasted it with her phantasmic powers. Finally, she gave it up as a bad job.

Was that really fear she had seen glimmering in his eyes? No, it was something else, something similar. Like worry. Either way, the expression was so alien to him as to be almost unrecognizable when on him.

But why? Why was he concerned, or worried, or afraid, or whatever the emotion? What did he have to fear? Hadn't he been getting away with ridiculous stunts for his entire afterlife? Why should this one time be any different?

And what was with that fire? She had never seen such a thing before, and if that yell he gave was any indication, it was the person on the other end who was to blame. Whoever it was, Juno she guessed, must have been furious with him. Could it be that there was a major rule he had broken that she didn't know about?

And why in the world was she worrying about him?!

She wandered around restlessly, finding it impossible to return to the lethargy that had characterized her afterlife before his arrival. It was past midnight, and her family was all safely tucked in their beds, so she could find no entertainment in watching them. Barbara and Adam still had not returned from Juno's office, and Lydia could only sympathise with their bad luck at drawing a number.

She was impossibly bored. Sooooo bored.

Dimly, she remembered the days just after Beetlejuice had been banished the first time. There had been much levitation, and shaking of body parts. She was no longer a young girl, but as a ghost, arthritis, stiff joints, and tender backs were not an issue anymore.

Hesitantly, she sent her family members into a deep sleep so they would not wake up no matter how much noise she made, and then zapped the radio to life with a lively reggae tune.

At first she felt foolish. She was a grown woman, she should not be dancing in the air and shaking it "all the time." She kept expecting someone, probably Beetlejuice, to leap around the corner and shout, "A-ha! I knew you were undignified at heart!"

Yeah, like Beetlejuice would ever use a word like undignified.

Soon, however, she was caught up in the beat, and forgot to worry about her dignity, as she zapped a few chairs into forming a conga line and hopping around the living room, as the dining room table and living room table danced a waltz. Even the curtains were shaking in time with the beat.

Almost at dawn, Lydia finally collapsed, laughing hard. The dining room table escorted the living room table back into its assigned room, and then trundled off, followed by its chairs, as all the silverware floated back into their drawers and cabinets.

On cue, Sara wandered downstairs, yawning and scratching, just missing the sight of the last fork darting into the closing drawer.

Lydia drifted up the stairs, slightly spooked at her close call, and decided to spend some time in the attic. The model was sitting on the table just where she left it. She gazed at it, half expecting to see Beetlejuice's grave.

She let out a little laugh, seeing that their drawings on the dusty window were still there. To her absolute shock, the stick figure flexed it's arms twice. Her gaze snapped over to her drawing. It was shaking its head, apparently despairing of Beetlejuice.

"We must have put more into that than I realized," Lydia muttered, backing away slowly. The drawings continued their silent battle, unmindful of her presence.

She wandered over to her special corner, and picked up her engagement ring, the last memento of her husband she had been able to carry away with her after death. He had died when Eddie was three, leaving her a widow in a large house with an even larger mortgage, with no way to pay most of her bills. Her job was supplementary, not enough to support the household. Charles and Delia had sold her this house immediately, and for much, much less than it was worth, in favor of moving down to Florida.

She waited several months to move out though, hoping to see her husband's ghost so she could at least say good-bye and wish him luck in his huge house. But he never showed up, even after nearly a year.

She bullied her way into the waiting room, demanded to see Juno, and got in after a mere two weeks. Her son, little innocent child that he was, had no idea what was taking so long, and why they had to sit in this creepy and horrible room. That was also when she realized he did not possess her gift of seeing ghosts, after hearing his repeated claims that the waiting room was empty.

Juno had been no help at all. Apparently there were no records of her husband dying, in fact there were no records of him having existed at all. So, confused and heartsick, she returned to the world of the living, packed up everything she could bear to bring, and moved back to her old home with Barbara and Adam, who were thrilled to have a child in the house, especially her sweet little boy with his big chocolate brown eyes, even if he never knew they were there.

She had taken a job at the Winter River Theater, painting backdrops and props, and made enough to get by, managing to work and beat off all the men acting like bulls in heat at the same time.

It lasted for fifteen years, until she was shot.

Snapping out of her thoughts, Lydia noticed that the attic was beginning to ice over in accordance with her depressing thoughts. Shaking her head, she made the effort to move on to less depressing thoughts. Remembering last night brought an involuntary smile to her lips. It had been a long time since she had felt that carefree.

In that same pile with her ring was the fluffy bat necklace that Beetlejuice had given her. She was still hard-pressed to believe that such an adorable little thing had sprung from his pocket. Giving in to a sudden impulse, she detached the chain and with a wave of her hand gave the little bat temporary life.

It chirped brightly, wings still outspread, and gazed around at its new world, enraptured. With another chirp, it flung itself into the air, flapping stiffly, and fluttered away downstairs.

Laughing, Lydia pursued it, stopping short at the sight of Fantasy, shivering badly, with the heater up full blast and wrapped in sweaters and blankets.

"It's only the middle of August, it shouldn't be this cold!," she muttered, huddled on the couch. Now Lydia felt bad.

But not bad enough to do anything about it.

Lydia wandered into the kitchen, looking for her little friend the bat when it happened. One minute she was bobbing along calling softly for her runaway necklace, the next she dropped to the ground, her head feeling like it was ruthlessly being ripped open and rifled through the same way a pursesnatcher might go through a wallet.

The it was over. She lay on the ground, panting painfully. Something had been robbed out of her mind, she knew it, and she could feel it. Naturally, her thoughts turned to the first time she had been forced to forget something by . . .

Oh. Shit. He was right. It WAS different this time. The higher-ups had just robbed her of his name. She couldn't even remember that replacement nick-name she had given him.

She had to find a way to help him.

But why? a small voice deep inside asked her.

". . ."

"Well, those arguments aside," Lydia muttered. But no, she knew why she had to help him. She had changed him. The apology, the presents, the little games they had played. It all added up to one thing; the poltergeist was NOT the monster she had thought he was.

Plus, the people who were holding him had just invaded her mind, and painfully ripped something out of it. She was not pleased with them.

For the first time, she noticed what her little fit had done to the house. A sudden upsurge of her powers had blown everything around her three feet back, and left a huge patch of ice just underneath her. The entire house's temperature was dropping to somewhere around thirty degrees.

Fantasy had bolted out of the house, unable to withstand this last straw, as the couch she was sitting on launched itself backwards. Currently, she was stumbling down the road, still wrapped in her heavy sweater and blanket in the hot August sun.

One of the neighbors came across her. "Ma'am, are you all right?" he asked, looking distressed on her behalf. She looked up at him, her eyes glazed.

"My house is possessed by the devil," she told him.

After a moment, the neighbor replied, "Okay," and went on his way, deciding it would probably be best to just leave her alone.

Back inside the house, Lydia was stomping up the stairs just because she still could, and just to demonstrate how enraged she was. She finally made it up to the attic, and went through the well-worn ritual, drawing a door on the wall with the chalk, and stepping through.

Not surprisingly, Barbara and Adam were sitting out in the waiting room. Adam looked to be asleep, a long string of drool hanging from the corner of his mouth. Barbara was propped up against his shoulder, snoring softly. Lydia smiled, temporarily forgetting her ire. However, she recalled it soon enough as she heard a loud, "A-hem!" behind her. She turned around, to see an impatient looking Miss Argentina cocking an eyebrow at her.

"Take a number please, someone will see you as soon as possible," she droned, flicking a long, well-manicured finger at the slip of paper.

"113," she read. She glanced at the display. "16,543,699. Not even close. Wonderful."

She sat down next to Adam glumly, already bored. On her other side, a young woman holding her head in her lap smiled at her. Not sure what else she could do, Lydia smiled back.

Just then, Barbara yawned into wakefulness. "Oh! Hello Lydia. What are you doing here? I thought you'd been left at home."

"I was," Lydia said. "I came here myself, to complain about an invasion to my privacy. Apalling."

"Ah," Barbara said knowingly. No doubt she thought Lydia was referring to Beetlejuice. Changing the subject quickly to the Carmichael family Lydia had left behind, the two women chattered to themselves until Adam woke up, and started adding his own insights.

Two Weeks later . . .

Lydia lay sprawled out on her chair, arms dangling limply by her side, head tilted back, eyes glaring senselessly at the wall. She looked as dead as she was.

It had been hard learning how to sleep with both eyes open and her number at the forefront of her mind, but she had gotten the trick of it, and slept on, blissfully unaware of how creepy she looked to the others in the waiting room.

Naturally, Adam and Barbara had gotten through almost a week ago, and had departed with expressions a mix of relief and regret. The following week had been hellish.

Just then, her number clicked on, and she slid out of her stupor with practiced ease and walked out before Miss Argentina even had time to call her name, to the immense relief of everybody else.

"Why is it you people always come to me?" Juno asked. "Why not Bob, down the hall? He's a perfectly nice man, I'm sure you'd get along famously. Why do I get all the crazy ones?"

Lydia smiled stiffly and ignored the old woman's half-serious complaints. "Why is it that just two weeks ago I was, for lack of a better term, mind raped, with the particular goal of ripping one word from my mind and I'm sure, that you know what I'm talking about much better than Mr. Bob-Down-The-Hall possibly could," she spat

Juno's face sagged. "You actually felt it then?" she asked wearily, running her hand through her thin white hair.

"Felt it?! It knocked me right out of the air! No wait, I'll tell you exactly what I felt, I felt my mind being ripped open; I felt little invisible fingers groping around my mind; I felt them latch onto that particular name, and I felt them YANK IT OUT of my head!!"

Juno puffed on her cigarette with single-minded intensity. There was silence for a minute, then she said slowly, "We did not foresee this."

Lydia crossed her arms, leaning back. "I suppose that's as close to an apology as I'm going to get from you," she said sarcastically.

"We did what we had to!" Juno snapped angrily. "He is a very dangerous man. Surely you should have realized this by now. We couldn't risk anybody else setting him loose." At that last statement, Juno gave her a beady-eyed glare.

Ignoring her, Lydia asked sharply, "Speaking of which, what's happened to him? Where is he?"

"He's in a holding cell." she answered reluctantly.

"What?! Why?"

"I cannot discuss that with you now. Come back in thirty years or so, when the details will be made public." Juno said dismissively, shuffling her papers in such a way as seemed to indicate that the conversation was over. Lydia refused to be cowed.

"What did he do? It can't be any worse than anything else he's ever done," she argued.

"I can't discuss that with you. Why do you want to know so badly, anyways?"

"Hmm. I don't really feel like answering that."

"Hmmph. I didn't really feel like giving you any answers to the questions asked, but I told you anyways!"

"Lies! You haven't told me anything!"

"I knew it!" Juno bellowed at her, finally losing her temper. "You've spent a little time with him, and now you've grown attached! Growing attached is dangerous, especially with him! Don't you realize the danger you put yourself in, you stupid girl? No, of course not. And so, naturally, we have to come and fish you out of your troubles. And you're not even grateful!!"

"Of course I'm not grateful! We were getting along! We were playing games, he was giving me gifts, he actually even apologized to me! Yes, you heard right, he apologized to me -- don't shake your head at me, he did!"

"That doesn't change anything, even if I did believe you, which I don't," Juno said stonily.

"Oh, for god's sake, he's been getting into trouble for nearly three hundred years! What makes this one time so different?"

"I can't discuss that with you," Juno said flatly. "Now if you don't mind, I'm a very busy ghost, and there are others behind you waiting to see me," she said, looking pointedly at the door.

"No no no no, I'm not done here. I--"

"Yes you are!" Juno snapped, stamping a piece of paper and shoving it into her hands. Before Lydia could say another word, she was whisked away, tumbling for a solid minute in a stomach-dumping roll in nothingness before landing on her ass with a loud thump on her living room floor.

"Ooh! That woman! Who in the world does she think she is?" Lydia cried out, in a towering rage. The carpet under and around her started to smoke and curl. The paper in her hands burst into flames.

If Lydia had spared a minute, she might have bothered to ask herself why she was getting so worked up over the lecherous poltergeist's plight.

Then again, maybe not.

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