The Only Exception
Call it aftermath, she's turning blue
A strange shiver crawled up Lydia's spine. She was just finishing up breakfast with her daughter and son when somewhere in her mind a shrill cry sounded. For a moment she was afraid she'd begin bleeding from her ears. That shiver slithered along her skin once more and she narrowed her eyes.
Beetlejuice.
For a moment, Autumn wasn't sure where the sound had come from. It took half a second to watch the creature reflected in her bathroom mirror, casually perched upon the counter top and peering at her, wince in discomfort and she knew then that she had screamed.
Everything else had happened in a blur. The towel rack was wrenched forcefully from the wall and collided with the glass at an alarming speed. To Autumn, it looked like fireworks raining down around her in slow motion. She observed, in a rather detached manner, that the specter was no longer in the mirror nor in the many fragments it had become.
Still, when sense returned to her, she pulled the towel closer around her form and nearly shrieked like a banshee, "Get the fuck out, you pervert!"
Whoa. Women.
"I will break every goddamn mirror in the house if you do that again!" The cold energy that seemed to accompany the voice vacated the premises in a big hurry and when Autumn finally felt convinced she was alone, she quickly toweled off and got dressed.
During that brief moment of reprieve she was able to ponder exactly what it was she saw sitting in the mirror before it had shattered into the sharp fragments strewn around her. A wild mess of white blonde hair. Dark and sunken eyes. Decayed looking skin. Stripes. Good god, he wore stripes.
It was exactly as Lydia had described. The poltergeist looked incredibly insane.
Looking down at the broken glass littering the tile floor, Autumn contemplated whether she should just clean it up now and get it over with or make an attempt at breakfast first. Coffee would need to be imbibed first either way. With a roll of her eyes, she turned away and exited the bathroom.
The phone was already making it's presence known before she got down the stairs. A quick rush into the kitchen and a mad dash to get it unplugged from the charger rewarded her with Lydia's worried questions.
"Hey, I had a really strange feeling this morning and I wanted to call and see if you were alright," she gushed frantically. Autumn raised her eyebrows, debating whether to come clean about last night's events or save it for later. When she was preferably more awake and had time to think it over.
She ended up spilling. "I had a visitor last night. Although visitor may not be the right choice of words here. Seems he's kind of...residential."
"I don't follow," Lydia admitted.
Autumn pulled her still wet hair to one side and sighed. "Your poltergeist. He's still here."
She almost felt as well as heard Lydia's sharp intake of breath. "I knew it. You have to get out of there, Autumn. It's not safe."
Her mind wandered back up to the bathroom floor's contents. "You may be right, but not for the reasons you're thinking. I'm not worried, Lydia. I'll be fine. If he bothers me too much I'll just have him exorcised or something."
"This is no joke!" Lydia screeched. Autumn winced at her high pitch.
"I'm not joking," she protested. "Look, I can handle myself just fine. Besides...what can he possibly do? I don't know his name so I can't say it. And before you ask, I have no intention of doing so."
It took another twenty minutes to convince Lydia not to take any drastic measures like driving up to retrieve her or informing someone named Juno of the goings-on. After hanging up, Autumn dropped her head onto the table.
"Why did I bother waking up?" she asked herself. "I should just go back to bed and start again tomorrow."
Well, that'd be no fun. We're just getting started, babe.
"This is madness!" Autumn screeched.
I thought we cleared that up last night...
"I need air. I'm outta here!" And with that, she was up from the table, slipping into her old combat boots, snatching her keys from the foyer and marching out into the cold November air with her coat trailing behind her.
The house seemed really quiet after that and it unsettled him.
The air was cold, but Autumn barely felt it. She'd shrugged into her wool pea-coat and stuffed her fingers into the mittens that were hanging out inside the pockets, that was good enough in her book. Still, the gloom above threatened snow and that would need to be taken into consideration later.
She trudged down the hill and towards the town proper. She passed through the little red bridge that Lydia told her the Maitland's had driven their car off of. It was where they died, trapped in there little car upside down in the river. She paused for a moment, savoring the feeling of solitude. The roof over her head echoed the raging wind outside and swept through the small tunnel, biting at her cheeks and ears.
The water was almost frozen at this time of year. She could only imagine how much it would hurt to fall in at that moment. However, Autumn had no death wish and so she continued on her little trek through the town.
She passed by the church, with the graveyard that the Maitland's, of course, were buried in, before trailing on over to what used to be Adam's hardware store and the barber shop that still stood next to it. What a funny thing, she thought. You just couldn't find a legitimate barber shop anywhere in the city. Everything was a salon, or the cheaper equivalent. This, this little slice of old school, was a men's joint.
Feeling a little put out just standing there, Autumn shrugged off the cold and headed for the most promising little enclave yet. A diner and a coffee shop all rolled into one. It had always been a guilty pleasure of Autumn's to escape the confines of her father's upscale home in the city and settle into a vinyl booth at a dingy diner somewhere downtown.
That Winter River could offer her that same small comfort put a grin on her otherwise unreadable visage. She entered the small diner, all thoughts of annoying poltergeists fleeing from her mind as she sat down at a booth facing the street.
The waitress was a woman in her mid-forties named Susan who snapped her gum like no tomorrow. She cheerfully supplied Autumn with a mug of steaming hot java and even a dish of cream when asked. Sitting back with her coffee, Autumn let out a breath and all the tension she'd been holding in. After her first sip of the black liquid, the rest of it slipped away.
"This is exactly what I needed," she sighed. And as she sat there, mulling things over in her mind her eyes lit up. Snatching a napkin and snagging one of Susan's pens she began scribbling furiously over her makeshift notepad. Once a good chunk of the front and back had been covered with furtive black markings, she sat back once more with a smile gracing her face.
"Yup," she chuckled. "Exactly what I needed."
The fire roared to life as Autumn stepped back into the house, cheeks rosy from outside and flushed from her quick jaunt back up the hill. She shrugged off her coat and made a beeline for the kitchen, powering up her laptop and reverently setting a scribbled on piece of napkin next to it.
He grumbled to himself. Waste of a fire, then. But his frown reversed when she turned to the coffee maker and stumbled to a stop in surprise. "The fuck...?"
Well, if you really want to, babes.
She let out a sigh and shook her head. "I can't believe I forgot you were here. That's how amazing my morning has been."
Nonetheless, she retrieved herself a mug and poured a cup of already make coffee. He couldn't have known she'd been sipping on the same juice for the last three hours, but even if he had...well, she'd probably be grateful if for nothing more than the opportunity to put more heat into her chilled form.
You cut me to the quick, toots. And here I've been waiting for ya.
"Waiting for what, exactly?" Autumn paused in front of the computer and took a few sips of the dark brew.
This was crucial. He was gonna have to strike a deal here, and one that might not favor him in the beginning. But it would all be worth it in the end, if he could manage to get out. He would have to play nice.
I'm gonna help you write that best-seller.
She nearly snorted out her coffee with the little chuckle the emitted from her small frame. "You? Help me? Right..."
Hey, if you want a real spooky horror novel, I'm your guy. I got all the digs, you know? Come on, you can even write about me if you want.
"Aside from the fact that I'd have to put a name to your annoying presence," Autumn drawled. "I'm actually not interested in writing horror this time around. I've got my own ideas, thank you very much."
He sulked right there in the kitchen with her for the rest of afternoon, watching absently as she clacked away at her keyboard, pausing every now and then to delete something or change a word. She went through the entire pot of coffee and paused when she reached the end of it.
"Christ, I haven't even eaten anything yet," she muttered. "And since I am absolutely not predisposed towards cooking today, takeout is on the menu. Chinese...?"
He wasn't sure if she was talking to herself or to him, so he wisely kept his trap shut. She ended up settling on Chinese food; the call took less than a few minutes – she rattled off the names of her favorite dishes with the ease of someone who lived on that junk. It was simultaneously impressive and pathetic.
When it arrived, she paid the teen delivery boy in cash with a small tip and sent him on his way. The bag of aromatic contents was placed on the counter. Autumn dug around until she pulled out a carton of white rice, one of spicy chicken, some vegetables, and a small dish of egg drop soup. She didn't even bother with plates, sitting down right there at the counter and digging in with a clean fork.
That stuff any good?
She paused mid bite and glanced around the room before settling on the murky looking window. After swallowing, she managed a sly grin. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
Yeah. So, uh, let me out?
She put her food down and took a deep breath. "Gods, I know I'm gonna regret this, but how exactly would I go about doing that? I still don't know your name and I doubt I can coax it out of my paranoid cousin."
Yes, that was the root of the problem wasn't it. He certainly couldn't just tell her what it was and the charade trick had been pulled. Star coordinates were too complicated...
Or were they?
Focusing all his juice onto the dish of rice sitting in front of him, he lifted a handful of white grains out and let them hover in the air, making sure he had her attention. Boy, did he have her attention. With a feral grin, he carefully place each grain onto the table, effectively drawing a star constellation. Good thing he bothered to learn about that stuff while he was hanging around Juno's office back in the day.
Guess which one I am, babes.
She slid off the counter and strode carefully over to the arrangement on the table. Autumn peered down at what looked like a very familiar shape, tucking a loose strand of red hair behind her ear. With narrowed eyes, she mapped them out.
"This is Orion, isn't it?" she asked tentatively. The tension in the room thickened and the air nearly crackled with electricity. "So...if you're one of these, you're named after a star. Shit."
Shit? What? Can't you look it up on that thing over there? He wrapped loudly on the back of her laptop.
"No internet, genius," she mumbled. "Although...maybe there's a book up in the study that could help. Gods know what's still hanging out up there. Charles certainly wouldn't bother with that kind of stuff but Adam sounded geeky enough."
She was halfway up the stairs by the time she finished muttering. Beetlejuice was hot on her heels, hoping against hope that Adam had indeed been nerdy enough to think stars were cool. They entered the dusty study together, and both began perusing bookshelves.
He found it first, a small book on star-gazing. With a whoop of joy, he chucked it at Autumn. It smacked her in the back of the head and she let out a little shriek before whirling around and taking stock of it. Grinning, she picked it up and start flipping through it.
"Alright, hopefully this works out," she sing-songed on her way back down to the kitchen. He was getting REALLY impatient now.
Come on, what does it say? Orion even in there?
"I'm looking, calm down..." She practically tripped down the stairs scanning the pages, so she gave up and settled for roving over the index once she was back at the kitchen table. Constellations → Orion → Belt/Stars → "Aha! Now, which one were you again...?"
Oh it was happening, he could feel it. His juice reached out and zapped the grain of rice that was acting as the left shoulder of Orion. She'd figure it out, no problem. This one was proactive and smart.
"Betelgeuse?"
Her pronunciation was spot on, too! Oh man, he'd kiss her when he got out.
"I'm right, aren't I? Your name is Betelgeuse."
Third time's the charm, babe. Come on, and I'll rock your world.
Author's Note: I don't usually post these things. They seem kind of pointless. However, I want to make some clarifications here. This is clearly taking place in modern day Winter River, hence the use of cell phones and laptops. Lydia is all grown up and spouting morbid little offspring of her own. Beetlejuice is his usual self. It's all great, no?
I did in fact catch the few typos in the first chapter and I intend to fix them at some point. There are probably a few here as well. But since this is a Nanowrimo challenge, my main concern is actually getting all the words out in a timely fashion. So here's CHAPTER TWO! Enjoy! ^_^