When She Finds Herself
Authors note: Thank you for coming to read my story! I'm not the greatest writer but I try my damnest. This is a story I've been thinking up for a while and finally started to put it to paper (not really but you get it). It's a cross of both the cartoon and the movie of Beetlejuice in a SLIGHT alternate reality? I don't know how to explain it but I really hope you guys like it 3
Disclaimer: I own NONE of Beetlejuice and am gaining no profit from it.
Chapter 1: The Beginning
The sun rays flickered through dark curtains that danced on a pale face. Dark chocolate eyes flitted open to blink away the light and remainder of a restless sleep. Lydia sighed before slipping her fingers under the sheets and flipping them unceremoniously off of her tiny frame. Her birthday was fast approaching and she was only excited for it because she was turning thirteen. She stretched, a small pop echoing from her form and she winced.
'Must've slept wrong' she mused before going to gather everything she needed for a shower and school. She didn't have to rummage through her closet long because all of her clothes were neatly hung up. She made her way to the bathroom, throwing the clothes on the sink before adjusting the water to a temperature she could stand before actually bathing.
Her shower only lasted a couple minutes as she didn't find herself a complicated individual, when in reality she really wasn't like other girls. She didn't pride herself in how she looked. As long as she knew she was clean she really didn't care about what kind of soap or shampoo she used. She turned the knob and the water came slower and slower until it was a small trickle of water that eventually ceased. She quickly towel dried off, dressed, brushed her teeth then ran into the creepy confines of her room. She slid quickly into her black iron chair that was situated in front of a large vanity before lightly rapping her knuckles on the glass.
"Good morning Beej!"
On the other side of the glass dark smoke swirled until a very dead man wearing a very disgustingly white and black stripped suit appeared and gave her an equally yellow smile.
"Mornin' babes, you seem cheery this morning? Come' on, tell me, who died?" he asked floating upside down, his grin growing into a curled smile. Lydia did nothing but laugh.
"No one Beej, my birthdays in two days. I hope you didn't forget?" She asked knowing her ghastly friend could NEVER forget.
"Of course I didn't! The luckiest of unluckiest numbers right?" She nodded as he righted himself in the mirror and leaned against an invisible desk.
"I don't really know what I want to do yet, but I was thinking I could invite Prudence and Bertha over for a sleep over and maybe a horror movie marathon with the usual pizza and cake. Just something small".
"Sounds like a riot! Maybe Betty can come over to play?" His eyebrows wiggled up and down which earned an eye roll from Lydia.
"Maybe, but you have to be on your BEST behavior! I mean it Beetlejuice. A girl only turns thirteen once." She said before slipping her messenger bag over her shoulder. "I have to go or I'm going to be late and I don't want Delia-"
Her words were cut off by a high pitched bestial screeching.
"LYDIAAAAAA! YOU'RE GOING TO BE LAAAAAAATE!" Both Lydia and Beetlejuice winced. He popped his fingers out of his ears with a loud pop before blinking at her.
"Yep. Got it. Later babes" and with another swirl of smoke, the mirror was just another pane of glass. She shook her head as she went out the door of her bedroom, down the stairs and out the door of the house. She threw her leg over the side of her bike and was about to ride off before her father and mother came out to stand on the threshold of the house.
"Have a good day pumpkin" her dad said wearily as he raised his 'Best Dad in the World' mug at her. Delia smiled and enthusiastically waved.
Lydia smiled and waved, then without lingering any longer rode off to school.
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At school Lydia listened to her teacher drone on about mathematical equations that somehow involved letters. Math had never been her strong suit, but history and science she was just fine at. Now art, that was what she excelled at. She loved photography and even had her own dark room in the basement of their house. Art was what kept her sane, well, that and Beetlejuice. She smiled as some goofy memories flashed past her eyes and was quickly pulled back to reality by her teacher calling her name.
"Lydia, can you please tell me how to find j when q equals two?" She said with a little more annoyance in her voice than normal. Lydia blinked and looked at the board which was completely blank.
"Um...what...was the equation again?" she sunk down lower in her seat when the kids started quietly giggling.
"I know the answer teach!" That voice, the grating voice of Claire Brewster. The overly annoying preppy, popular girl that was even worse than watching Beetlejuice eat bugs.
"Go on Ms. Brewster...I'm waiting" The teacher drummed her nails on the desk for a second or two while Claire cleared her throat to answer.
"Well, if q equals 2 and the equation is j = q – 4, than OBVIOUSLY j has to be -2" She beamed brightly as the teacher just nodded her head in approval.
"At least Ms. Brewster was listening Ms. Deetz. Maybe you should take some pointers from her next time." She slowly turned to the blackboard to start writing some more sample equations to show how to get similar answers from similar questions.
Lydias eyes fluttered closed as she heard Claire scoot a tad closer behind her. "Y'know Lydia, I know you're normally like, SLOW, but like, you're EXTRA slow today! Finally decided to stop faking it and be like your real self?" She snorted before a giggling fit erupted around her.
Lydia bit the inside of her lip before she said something she would regret.
Another hour droned by before the bell rang and she grabbed up her stuff to rush out to meet Bertha and Prudence in the hallway. They both looked at her stomping to them before turning around and quickly following her pace.
Bertha cleared her throat before carefully asking Lydia what was wrong. Lydia stopped and started recounting her time in class with Claire. Lydia knew she was going to have an off day when she left the house this morning. In fact, she'd had a weird feeling all week and it didn't get better, it honestly was getting worse. The whole week her parents had been acting weird and she kept telling herself it was just because of her birthday this weekend, but even their normal behavior for that was less weird than the way they were acting. Prudence and Bertha looked at her as she ranted in the hallway and tried to reassure her and praise her as much as they could. Prudence finally broke the string of growing obscenities that were steadily growing worse and worse coming from her best friend.
"So birthday! What're we doing and where's the party going to be?" Lydia stopped and a small smile spread across her face where the frown used to be.
"I was just thinking of having a small party at my house. Just us and Betty- i-if it's okay!" Lydia rubbed her arm a little. "I know she can be a bit...much at times" she felt a small tug at the corners of her lip that made her want to laugh. Prudence and Bertha smiled at each other before turning back to Lydia.
"We don't mind Betty! We know she's...strange, but so are you-" Prudence started before Bertha busted in with
"IN A GOOD WAY!". Both of them looked at her before laughing. Lydia wiped a tear from her eye before nodding.
"I figured, thanks guys. It's just going to be pizza, cake, and a horror movie marathon" This made the pair eye each other.
"Again? Didn't we just have one of those...like...2 weeks ago?" Bertha asked.
"Without the cake" Prudence added. They all nodded in agreement before they were interrupted by Claire and her friends.
"Hey Lydia, I thought because you were struggling so much to get the simple math you could borrow my notes!" She flashed some pieces of paper in front of Lydias face and when Lydia actually took them out of her hands they were nothing but equations that said things like 'Lydia = Stupid + creepy' and pictures of Lydia as a stick figure looking stupid and drooling over random numbers. Lydia crumpled them up and slowly turned her attention towards Claire and her friends who were laughing until they were in tears. She sighed slowly and went to go off on her but the bell rang and all the children in the hall started scattering. Prudence and Bertha just gently pulled on her blazer to lead her down the hall for the rest of the day.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Lydia arrived home after saying goodbye to her friends and school and almost raced home, ignoring crosswalk signs, other people and even the sidewalks. Her bike screeched to a halt just outside of the front door on the lawn and she just let it fall haphazardly into the bushes. She opened the door and her parents were bickering in the kitchen. Almost instantly when they heard the door close their voices became barely a whisper. She ignored both of them, and went upstairs to talk to her best friend about her day.
She opened the door and closed it behind her, being very careful not to slam it and then flopped in the vanity chair while letting her bag fall to the floor.
"Hey, you don't look so good babes, what's up?" Beetlejuice was already there, lazing on his back, legs folded over one another and his eyebrow raised to show his curiosity. She couldn't help herself. She broke down and started recanting her day all while pulling books and papers out of her bag and slamming them down on the surface of the vanity.
"Whoa, whoa whoa! What's all that about Lyds?" Beej straightened himself upright and became semi serious. She told him about school, about Claire and most of all about the feeling of impednding doom. She stood up away from the chair, briskly walking towards the curtains and slammed the thick black fabric shut.
"Babes?" Beetlejuice was now actually worried. He had rarely seen her this upset and when he did, it took quite a while to calm her down even though normally, she was the most matured out of the duo.
"Though I know I should be wary, still I venture someplace scary! Ghostly hauntings I turn loose...Beetlejuice, BeetleJuice, BEETLEJUICE!" In a flash, her hair went from straight and proper to pulled up in a high frazzled pony tail. Her school clothes melted away and black smoke surrounded her to put her in black leggings and a large, blood red poncho with spiderwebs creeping their way over it. The scenery swirled around her and suddenly she was standing in Beetlejuice's house. Beetlejuice himself was standing there waiting for her. Cobblestones lined the floors and walls and cobwebs lined every corner of the the room and then dripped down. He looked at her for a minute before she sat down on his couch which could barely be called a piece of furniture.
"I don't know what to do Beej...This feeling won't go away and i'm...i'm scared. I keep trying to push it down and think about my party this weekend, but..." She let her hands flop in her lap and just stared at them, slowly picking off the Eggplant purple polish on each finger.
"Lyds, it'll all be okay! Whatever eerie feeling you're having, I'll scare the pants off of it so bad it'll think twice before coming back!" He floated over to her smiling. To prove a point, he grabbed the hair on either side of his head and jerked away, tearing his face off leaving a screaming skeleton with eyes.
Lydia just looked up at him, a smile smirk edged on her lips. She blinked a couple of times then looked down.
"But...what if it's NOT just a feeling? I know we can deal with it together, and that eases it some, but...there's just something weird...not only the dreams..." She mumbled the last part and Beetlejuice floated so he was just above the rotting couch cushion.
"What kinda dreams babes? Are they about our adventures?! The good times we've had scaring the pants off people?" He got close to her face but she finally let out a chuckle and used her hand to push him back by his face.
"No...it's strange. There's always a voice, and it sounds like my voice, but it's not. They're always telling me to not forget, to find myself. That something is going to be working against me...and that's where they end. Same voice, same words, different settings. Sometimes it's in a rundown log cabin, sometimes it's in a cemetery, and sometimes its in a weird house with...really weird sculptures." Beetlejuice sat in silence with her for a minute before pulling her to her feet.
"Let's visit with Jacques and Ginger. They'll at least keep your mind off of it for a while. Plus it's fun to mess with 'em if you know what I mean!" He cackled and grabbed her hand, dragging her out the door until dinner time.