Disclaimer: I own NONE of Beetlejuice and am gaining no profit from it.
Chapter 5: Questionable Beginnings
It had been four years since her parents had decided on a whim to up and move to New York. Four years since the accident. She had slowly gotten some of her memories back, not all, but enough throughout the past to realize her life was miserable then, and it is miserable now. She watched as the trees passed on their way through the countryside. Her head was tilted, pressed against the cool glass in the backseat as she thought about the "New Investment" her dad had made. He had moved them again, this time, to upstate Maine. As if on cue, a sign that said "Welcome to Winter Rivers'' popped up along the road, and then as fast as it had come, it was gone.
Lydia hadn't changed much. She still wore the same dark clothing and liked the same things: horror movies, death, photography, sewing, and some other things. She still hated her parents. Delia was still as loud and obnoxious as ever while her father sat back and was as complacent as he'd ever been. Charles Deetz always played mediator without ever actually solving anything. They had up and moved right as summer started so they could get things settled with the new house. Unfortunately, there was a sect of Shannon's here so Lydia didn't really have to transfer to a new school per se, but her records went straight through the lineup to this school without any hiccups or other extra paperwork.
A sigh escaped her lips and Delia looked back at her through the mirror.
"Lydia, will you really be this gloomy for the rest of the trip? At least try to look on the bright side?" Lydia glared and looked out the window again.
"You weren't looking on the bright side when Dad told us we were moving." Delia opened her mouth but Charles sensed the coming storm and turned up the radio.
"God I love this song! Don't you like it too hun?" He flashed Delia an over-excited smile.
Lydia looked up to the passing town they were driving through. There was an old-fashioned barber shop with the pole spinning just outside. A man in white sitting on a bench underneath it watched their car go by absentmindedly. There was a large "Maitlands Hardware" Sign above a brown-paneled store that looked multi-floored. There was a huge Church they passed going around a curve as well. Their family had NEVER been church-going people, or religious at all as a matter of fact.
As the winding road went up, they started to go up a hill and that's when Charles smiled. "Well! Would you look at that? Our new home" He said quickly looking back at Lydia, then turning his sight to Delia who looked pale. The movers were already there and stuff had already been unloaded out of the trucks when they pulled up to the front of the house. Charles and Delia were the first to go in, Lydia found her way to their couch and sat down with her camera. She sighed and looked up at the house. The house was huge. It was much bigger than what they really needed, but everything the Deetzes did was over the top. Lydia snapped a photo of the house. She listened to her dad trying to corral the movers while Delia had a meltdown over the interior decor.
Her attention was drawn to a car pulling up the graveled path. An old brown box-looking car rolled to a slow stop. The woman driving looked very tightly wound while the girl in the back looked like her mother's precious little dress-up doll. Lydia wanted to hurl. The woman hurriedly gave Lydia a key. Something about it being a skeleton key to any door in the house.
"What happened to the family that lived here?" The woman sniffed and pulled out a handkerchief while the girl in the back rolled down the window.
"They drowned" The girl had a ratty-sounding voice and seemed either way too excited or happy that these poor people were dead.
"Yes, they were family. I was devastated" The woman put the kerchief back in the front pocket of her equally brown skirt suit, not really seeming all that sorrowful about the passing of the couple. "Tell your family I personally decorated the interior"
She shoved a card in Lydia's hands. Lydia rolled her eyes. From what she could tell, that woman's decorating was giving Delia a conniption. As she turned to face the house again to take another picture she swore she saw two people staring at her from what could be the attic window.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
It had been good coming back to his house. The roadhouse no longer housed anybody else, but it was now derelict. Beetlejuice walked through the door and stopped at the sight of his room. He had forgotten what a mess he had made before he got arrested. He noted that the next time he had a meltdown, he wouldn't take it out on his furniture. It was an easy enough fix though as he just snapped his fingers and the debris was gone. The splinters of the couch, TV. stand and one end table were gone. He snapped his fingers again and a lounge chair popped into existence in the corner along with a small lamp. He sat down and sighed. He missed the feeling of being free. Killing, scaring, and utterly torturing people was a riot, but he could only do so much until he got bored again… or arrested.
He stretched and leaned over to a small end table that suddenly appeared and grabbed a newspaper that was also miraculously on the table. He grimaced as he read the front cover.
"Damn. Sandworms 13 percent huh? Well, better find a job. Let's see, business section." He flipped through the flimsy paper until he came to the Obituary section. Right in the middle of the page was a couple. They looked like they were in their mid-forties and the photo of them made them look absolutely clueless. They were perfect. Beetlejuice grinned and licked his teeth.
"Ooh, la la! What do we got here? The Maitlands huh?" A throaty chuckle escaped from his lips as he started thinking of all the fun he was going to have.
xoxoxoxoxoxox
It hadn't been long at all since they moved in when everything started to tilt. Lydia HAD seen a couple in the window of the attic. They were the Maitlands. The same couple who had drowned. They were trying to scare her family into leaving but weren't doing a very good job at it. Ever since she had grown attached to them. Barbera was way more maternal than Delia could ever be and Adam was funny. They both had a sense of humor and liked the fact that they could actually talk to somebody else.
They grew quite close over the handful of months that she'd known them. Sometimes they would leave and she wouldn't see them for weeks at a time, but they always came back with warm hugs and apologies. She had told them about the dinner Delia was hosting for her art agent. She had laid on their couch and complained about Delia wanting them to "play family". She didn't even say they were a family, to just play at one. It was fine with Lydia though. She had known since she had left Peaceful Pines that any semblance of family she had died that day, and part of her did too.
Adam and Barbera listened to her woes but seemed distracted. She could tell they were hiding something but didn't want to ask. They were dead and committed to another realm of bullshit rules, at least that's what she got out of the handbook they had. She sat up and sighed, stretching a tiny bit. She got up onto her feet and walked over to the handmade town model Adam had single-handedly built. Her eyes skimmed over the small houses, roaming the town. She was about to glaze over the cemetery when Barbera and Adam were beside her. She jumped and looked at them, ready to ask them the question "What's wrong?" when she was summoned by her dad downstairs.
"Well, I guess I'll see you guys after Delia's dinner party…Hopefully, the food will put me out of this misery…" Her voice lingered at the door before it shut and she was gone.
"Adam, I don't know if we should do this. I mean her Dad's not that bad but that poor little girl needs us!" Adam pulled his wife close in a warm embrace and planted a kiss on her forehead.
"We need to do this hun. These people are ruining our house and our afterlife. We're scaring her parents, not her." He looked into Barbera's eyes who just looked down and nodded sadly.
The dinner went on very awkwardly. Delia and her father tried to drum up interesting conversation but ultimately, their guests weren't impressed. The glass of cold shrimp in front of everyone looked appetizing, but knowing Delia, she had fucked it up somehow. Lydia tuned out most of the conversation until Otho said something about suicide and ghosts. She perked up and looked at the table.
"I saw some ghosts" Lydia was greeted with silence. Delia busted out in nervous laughter making everyone turn their eyes to her.
"It's a private joke Lydia and I share!" Delia's eyes roamed over all of her guests, settling on Lydia and giving her a warning look.
"It's not a joke" Lydia countered.
"Yes, it is! Just today she tried to convince me this house is haunted!" Another anxious chuckle echoed around the room."Kids! You know I love 'em!" Delia's guests looked at her with disinterest. Lydia looked down, tuning out the rest of the dinner conversation. She played with some shrimp until her mother straightened up and she looked at her.
"Day-O!" Lydia blinked, everyone in the dining room looked at Delia like she was crazy. She sang out one more time before completely bursting into song. Lydia's face lit up, only her knowing it had to be the work of her other-worldly parents. She got up from the table and backed herself into a corner of the dining room to watch the spectacle go down. It was really a sight to behold. Her stepmother sang while her dad and their guests danced and shook their behinds. When it was all over, they sat, scooting to the table just for their shrimp to materialize into a hand. The shrimp gripping the faces of everybody at the dinner table ended the whole scene, but throwing everyone back, so forcefully that the entire party ended up on their backs with a loud painful thud that shook the room.
Unfortunately for Lydia, it did nothing to deter her parents from making this about them or about money. After running from the dining room Charles and Delia were absolutely ecstatic about the events that just occurred. Lydia rolled her eyes and decided to go to her room until her parents asked her to go get Barbera and Adam. Rolling her eyes and with little protest, she made her way up to the attic. After unsuccessfully trying to convince them to come down Lydia returned just to have the guests leave in a fury.
Honestly, Delia was a flake but the fact that her agent told her so made Lydia internally chuckle. They turned on her in a hot second, bulldogging their way up the stairs. Lydia was trying to get them to leave but to no avail. To her surprise, however, the attic door swung open after Delia pounded her fist on it. Delia, Charles, Otho, and Lydia walked in, Lydia protesting the entire time. After a while, they fled out the door and back downstairs.
Beetlejuice had been waiting in the model. The lit cigarette between his grimy fingers billowed languidly as a hysterical laugh escaped his lips.
"Time to turn on the Juice and see what shakes loose!"
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Lydia rubbed the bridge of her nose as she trailed behind. She couldn't believe that her parents were doing this and the feeling in her chest made her nervous. Something was about to happen and she didn't like the feeling it gave her. As Delia was shouting behind her, ranting about the Maitlands she suddenly stopped in the middle of the hallway. Hysterics ensued as suddenly the handrail to the stairs was now a snake with a large humanoid head with bulging eyes and long fangs. Delia was caught unawares as the head was suddenly underneath her legs, looking up her skirt. She turned and disappeared into a room with fright and embarrassment. Otho tried to sneakily run down the stairs while the giant serpent was occupied but instead ended up getting tripped and knocked down the stairs by a loud rattled tail. Charles tried running into a room, but was caught and lifted up by his ankles. The serpent let out a manic laugh before coming face to face with Charles.
"We've come for your daughter chuck." Beetlejuice smiled as he dangled Charles over the railing. In all honesty when he had gotten here he thought the Maitlands were just going to be another couple of losers he could scam. But hearing the name Charles brought back bitter memories he had pushed down, way deep down. He highly doubted that it was the same couple, the same…
A voice brought him crashing back into reality. He released his grip on Charles and watched as he plummeted to the floor. He turned his attention to the girl. He closed in on her quickly and backed her into a corner. As he stared at her with a mixture of lust and interest, a small feeling flipped in the pit of his stomach. He had to get another look at her, he had to get her to turn his face to him. He HAD to know if it was her.
As he drew closer a voice rang out behind him and his interest was squashed and replaced with disgust and rage.
"Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!" Barbera had emerged from the attic to put a stop to his antics. He blinked and he was back in the shitty graveyard of the old dusty model in the attic.
"FUCK!" Beetlejuice kicked a gravestone instantly knocking it over. His head was filled with what ifs and maybes, but his better judgement was arguing him down. He had spent what felt like an eternity in prison, being Juno's bitch all for what? What if that was her? What if… but did she remember him? Of course not, because of that fucked up accident. He was left to rot while she grew up and forgot. Rage built in his chest and mixed with his confusion. Beetlejuice had stopped feeling human emotions a long time ago, y'know when he stopped living. It was only when he met Lydia all those years ago. He bit his thumb and started making plans. Even if this was his Lydia, she wouldn't remember, he could still use that and get out. An evil smile spread across his face and he started planning.
Lydia sat in her room shaking from fear. She didn't know why the snake wanted her, but for the first time in a while she was scared. But something inside her ate at her. There was something under the fear that she couldn't quite pinpoint. Something flashed between them in the brief minute their eyes locked. There was something underneath everything else that scared her. A pang ripped through her chest and she grabbed her dress. The same thing had happened four years ago when leaving peaceful pines. She gasped when the pain subsided and laid on her bed. This was it. She couldn't take anymore. She needed out and now.