In this chapter, we explore trauma. I also decided to split this chapter into two halves to make it easier to read.
Beetlejuice wandered into Lydia's bedroom. Thankfully the woman was nowhere to be seen but the atmosphere was already back to normal when compared to the big black cloud that the day before had been. So he decided to take a moment to really study the mirror that was his prison. He was thinking about smashing the awful thing to pieces when he realised something looked different about the dresser below it. He couldn't quite put his finger on exactly what it was but it looked a little off to him. He ran his hands along the clean lines, feeling the wood beneath his fingernails when he felt a small latch. He felt around with his fingertips and he realised he found a hidden ornate keyhole. He wondered if Lydia had a key but as he ran his fingers across the bumps of the metal keyhole he felt something click beneath his fingers. He heard the door open behind him and he realised Lydia had walked into the room. He had two options. He could either A: keep doing what he was doing and try to find out what that strange click had been. As there was clearly some sort of hidden compartment in the dresser. Or B: he could pretend he was just closely inspecting the mirror. Though both options were good he decided it was best that he told Lydia what he was doing. After all, if there was anything good in the dresser she should be in on it.
"What are you doing?" Lydia asked already annoyed that he was in her stuff. She didn't want to talk about yesterday and she had already struck the majority of it from her mind except his kindness. She would remember that. He had responded to her half-hearted threat by asking if she wanted him to leave. Which felt oddly sweet coming from the ghostly demon. She hadn't thought he was capable of being sweet or caring about anyone but himself. But, he had proved her wrong and she was still surprised by that. He was turning out to be an actual multifaceted person. He wasn't the villain he used to be as something about him had changed, though what that thing was she was unsure about. Something had changed about him and she was curious to find out what exactly it was. If only he would let her close enough to find out exactly what that mysterious thing was.
"I found a secret compartment, want to find out what's in there? Who knows it could be some saucy little love letters from whoever last owned this dresser". Beetlejuice said with a suggestive quirk of his eyebrows as he eyed Lydia. She was unfortunately wearing clothes again which he dispised. But he had to admit she did look good in the black jeans and T-shirt she was wearing.
"My mum was rather wild but she wasn't like that Beej. I doubt it's anything I haven't seen before" Lydia stated. Her mum had been a wild spirit but the woman's first and only romance had been with Lydia's father and she really didn't think that Charles was the letter-writing type at least she hoped not. At that, the compartment swung open and a large leather-bound book hit the floor with a satisfying thud. At least they thought it was leather, but as Beej bent to pick it up he realised the book was bound in something rather unsavoury. The texture was like leather but a little thinner and he could feel something under his thumb that reminded him of eyelashes. As he turned the book over his heart sank.
"No not this again. I thought I destroyed this" he hissed, his hands quivering as he looked at the book cover. He remembered this book, its presence had haunted him for many a year. He had disposed of this particular book a few centuries ago and he had hoped to never see it again. Yet here it was, its cracked "leather" cover had a few more signs of wear and tear than when he had previously seen it. But, the years had unfortunately been kind to the cursed, old book. He honestly thought that one day the book would rot away thanks to all the evil delicately penned upon every single page.
"Oh, I wondered where that went. It's just one of my mum's old books. She used to read to me when I was little" Lydia said taking the book from him and turning it over in her hands. She had to admit that the cover was gnarly looking. She wasn't a fan of the stray wirey hairs that erupted from the cover every now and then or the tough thread that had stitched together the different parts of the cover. The book looked a little like Frankenstein's monster as it seemed to be sewn together from several different parts. Though the cover was cracked, worn by time and tanned to the point it looked as if it had been left out in a desert to dry. She had no idea quite what the book had originally looked like but to her, it looked the same as it always had. It hadn't aged, thanks to being hidden away for so many years.
"This...this is your mothers? this book. She owned this book and she used to read it to you? What like some sort of fucked up bedtime story?" Beetlejuice asked quirking an eyebrow at Lydia as he oggled the book in her hands. He seemed afraid of the book for some reason and Lydia couldn't quite put her finger on why. The book was a little unusual sure, but there was nothing to be afraid of in the old cracked book as far as she remembered.
"Yes..." She said suspiciously Beetlejuice wasn't acting right, she had never seen him look scared before and he looked positively petrified of the old book. He needn't though as it was just an old lyric book as far as she remembered.
"Beej are you alright you're acting kinda of odd. What does this book mean to you?" she asked but her question was answered by another question.
"What do you mean when you say that your mother used to read it to you babes?" He asked carefully. He really wanted to take the book off Lydia and save her from the evil that seeped from every page. He had seen grown men go insane from reading a single page and here was Lydia saying that her mother had read from the book. It was impossible but yet again here was Lydia acting as if the book was the most normal thing in the world.
"Well, when I was little I got sick a lot and whenever I was ill my Mum used to get out this book and she would sing the words to me. Kind of like a lullaby of sorts. I never really understood it but it was never in English. From what I remember it was a lot of strange kind of breathy noise made from rhythmic hisses, clicks and pops. I still don't quite know how she managed to make those noises but the words all flowed together in a sing-song fashion that was beautiful. It was always unusual because I would usually be at the peak of my fever and I would hallucinate all kinds of strange things in rhythm with her singing. It always worked though, the fever would break and I would be more or less back to normal by the next day" Lydia said as if it was the most usual thing in the world to confess. She had to admit that her memories of the times she was sick as a child were hazy. Her half-recalled memories were no doubt rife with the strange hallucinations and the simmering breakdown of reality that often went along with them. Her concept of reality became somewhat looser whenever she was sick, it was like she could see things that were usually there but normal folk couldn't see. She couldn't see ghosts quite yet, that ability would come along later in life. But when she was little she would see hints of things that were there. Mainly shadow creatures plagued her vision though occasionally something else would pop up as well. However, the disturbing images were whisked away by the haunting lullaby that returned Lydia to a less sick state.
"I used to see all kinds of strange things when she sang to me. Then again that was apparently oddly common with her music" Lydia wondered how exactly she could explain her mother. She had been a complicated woman, the singer of an underground rock band. People used to say that the walls vibrated and they saw strange things whenever her mother would sing. Lydia still could physically feel the music whenever she loaded up an old recording of her mother's voice. She found it oddly comforting as she had deeply admired her mother. She still did but things ended on a very sour note due to the woman's untimely death.
"Babes, can you actually read what's in the book?" Beetlejuice asked again carefully as if he was expecting Lydia to explode at him any second. Or perhaps it was the book he was tiptoeing around. Lydia wasn't sure but it was evident that the book certainly seemed to freak him out more than a little.
"No, at least I don't think so" Lydia stated "I remember trying to read it once when I was a kid. I was sick at the time so all I remember was the words swimming on the page and the feeling like I was going to throw up. I never tried to read the book again after that. Though mum hid the thing when she caught me trying to read it. I got the telling off of a lifetime that day. For years I thought I had just stumbled across one of her erotic novels but now I'm not so sure" Lydia said which made Beeltlejuice twitch for some reason.
"Don't read it out loud, reading it in your head is bad enough. But babes, I'm going to need you to see if you can read the book at all. See if anything makes sense to you". He was eying her carefully as she opened up the book carefully. The first thing she became acutely aware of was the book's age. The thing book smelt of dust and mould spores leaving it with a slightly damp smell, that clung to the thick pages. She caressed the page beneath her fingertips, it didn't feel like paper at all, it felt more closely to a papyrus of some sort. The pages however were dry to the touch as Lydia leafed through it so the damp smell was just part of that old book aroma that she liked so much. She could detect an unusually coppery undertone to the scent that lingered in the nostrils once the scent of age and mouldering paper had passed. She could see a few drawings that she recognised. The twisted souls in the pictures certainly weren't meant for the eyes of a child. She remembered how terrified she had been of the book as a child thanks to the hideous drawings. Which looked as if they could jump out of the page at any second. There was a strange dimensionality to the drawings which went beyond them looking three-dimensional. It looked as if they truly lived in the book, just waiting for their time to finally escape and attack the reader. Whoever had penned these cursed-looking designs had spent a lot of time focused on the tiniest of details. A glossy almost murky look to the eyes of one of the creatures reminded Lydia of the creature from the black lagoon as the creature in the drawing was humanoid but at the same time it looked highly aquatic and its face reminded her of a human's mixed with a catfish. Which was certainly an interesting aesthetic choice but ever a lover of monsters Lydia enjoyed the strange drawing.
Lydia carefully leafed through the book and she flicked through the deep crimson lettering that had a hint of a brown almost scabby hue to it. It wasn't quite as consistent as writing with a modern pen, she could see big globs of what she presumed was ink in some places, it was thick and almost gloopy in some places and thin and sheer looking in others. Lydia surmised that the book must have been penned with some sort of calligraphy brush or other such instruments as even an ink pen would have more of a reliable viscosity to it. Even if it was running low there still wouldn't be the fat yet uneven edges to some of the lettering.
After flicking through the book a little more she finally found a section she recognised. It was one of her mother's favourite chapters. The strange unidentifiable text swam before her eyes before turning into identifiable text.
Lydia blinked and small visions projected themselves upon her retina. Her head swam and she could hear a strange whispering as the book translated itself into English. Yet she could hear the original language in her head. It was full of deep gurgles like a throat was full of phlegm while speaking underwater. She could hear a strange popping and hissing noise that sounded almost serpentine. Lydia did her best to ignore the strange audio that burst from the book. She wondered if Beetlejuice could hear it too but if he did he showed no hit at such. She could feel his eyes watching her intensely as she quietly read a small passage. The paragraph depicted some sort of nameless creature that was older than the stars themselves named Mother...something or other. Her fingertips buzzed as if there was a small electric current infused inside the book. She traced a few letters with her fingers and she realised that the feeling increased. Beetlejuice watched Lydia in silence. He could see that strange milky almost foggyness had taken up residence in Lydia's eyes again. Just as it had done earlier when the unseen force had taken hold of her. This wasn't a good sign and Beetlejuice wanted nothing more than to snap Lydia out of whatever had hold over her. But he needn't have bothered as Lydia quickly shut the book with a slam. Dust rose up from its cover as she did so but luckily the unearthly fog also began to drain away from her eyes the moment she closed the book.
"I don't think I like this book" Lydia said confused as to her strange experiences with the no-doubt cursed object. She had enough of the unusual visions of the creatures from the page. She hadn't expected to experience the book in such unusual dimensional intricacy, so she couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by the situation. She was filled with a feeling of dread and her fingertips still buzzed horribly.
"So that's a clear yes then, you can read it" Beetlejuice said a cigarette appearing in his hand already lit and he began smoking it anxiously.
"Babe's you shouldn't be able to read it. At least not without going mad first" Beetlejuice said with a wave of his hand the book appeared next to him its cover now closed and firmly locked with a padlock.
"You don't look insane to me, just the same ol' sexy Babes" He said with a wink that seemed to break the tension between them. Lydia found herself relaxing. But that didn't last long as Beetlejuice fixed her with a curious gaze that raked up and down her body suggestively. The crazy ones were always the hottest so perhaps the book hadn't affected her because she was already aboard the crazy train? It was a solid theory but he doubted Lydia had lost her mind, there had to be something else at work. He tried to ponder on what it was when Lydia interrupted his train of thought.
"Yo, no smoking in the house" Lydia said taking the cigarette off him and grinding it out into the glass jar that usually housed her makeup brushes.
"You were smoking yourself just yesterday" He reminded her already annoyed.
"First I was out on the patio and secondly that was a once-a-year kind of thing for me". She hissed, outraged that he would tell her what to do in her own house.
"Right, are we going to pretend Yesterday didn't happen or what?" he asked annoyed by her pedantic rule and also a little ticked off that she hadn't acknowledged what had happened between them. Either the fun they had against the wall or the strange dark cloud of a day that followed it. He couldn't get the image of Lydia and her naked, marred body out of his head. He was more than a little curious about the cause of the scars. He was rather fond of how they looked, as they added an edge to the woman who he already thought was a real stunner. It just added a little something extra to Lydia that really did it for him and he couldn't understand why but the scars were a bit of a turn-on. He had seen plenty of women with scars sift through the afterlife but none of them wore it as well as his Lydia did. Perhaps it was because they were dead and she was very much one of the living.
"I think it's time you told me about how you got those sexy scars of yours Babes." Beetlejuice insisted and Lydia shuffled uncomfortably where she stood. She really didn't want to go into this but she owed him as much. Especially after last night. He had been respectful and left when she asked so she had known the question was coming. She just hadn't expected it after being interrogated by random questions about her mother's book.
Lydia tried to protest for a moment
"What does that have anything to do with the book" But, the look Beetlejuice was giving her was enough for her to finally tell him the truth.
"Okay, the first thing you need to know is that my parents were very different people. My dad is well, dad and my mum was a vibrant soul who believe it or not was the singer of a rock band called the Cat's O'Ulthar. Mum and Dad met while Mum was looking for an accountant for the band" Lydia said and Beej rolled his eyes.
"I really can't see your Pops dating someone like that" Beetlejuice yawned. He really couldn't imagine nervous ol' Chuck being the kind of guy to date a rock band singer, but he supposed all people were young once and so he put it down to that.
"Yeah I know right, they were terribly mismatched from the start. They were the kind of couple that looked like they were from different worlds even from the start" Lydia explained even in photos, (the few that were left); Her mother and father didn't properly look like a couple. Hell, they didn't even look like friends, they looked like strangers meeting for the first time. That fact had always confused Lydia, as her parents really had been from different worlds right from the beginning. Her father was the band's finance guy thanks to the band manager being a close friend of the family.
"While we're young here Lyds. I didn't ask about how your parents met. I don't need their life stories too" Beetlejuice interrupted as he had no intention of listening to a long drawn-out story about how her folks met.
"Look I'm getting to it alright. Mum was on tour in Germany and I went with her. I don't remember much about it but it was a fun time for little me" She had been about to describe the tour and all the things that went on but she didn't think that it would interest the ghost so she continued.
"Anyway, the important part is that we got back a day early from the tour as Mum wasn't feeling great and the last venue cancelled on them so we had a free day. It was pissing it down with rain and Mum decides that we are going to surprise Dad by coming home early. Only when we got home mum walked in on Dad in bed with Delia. Apparently, they had been having an affair for quite some time. I still don't know how long as my shrew of a stepmother still claims that Greif bought them together and she refuses to acknowledge that she was sleeping with my father way before my mother actually died" Lydia scoffed before continuing.
"So there me and mum are in the car. It's torrential rain, mum is crying her eyes out. Like really sobbing her heart out. We ended up sliding across a junction. Unfortunately for us, a truck hauling unsecured scaffolding is already coming through the crossing. Turns out that a truck trying to stop so suddenly doesn't work how you would think. The truck stopped but the cargo didn't" she said bitterly. Though she seemed to be right with talking about the tragedy. It had taken her a long time to get to a place where she could talk about what happened without bursting into tears.
"Honestly, it was like a scene from Final Destination with the logs but instead it was scaffolding materials. They were scattered all over the road and we were in a small car, so it was no match for that onslaught. The car was a wreck and there were pipes and sheered fragments of metal everywhere" Lydia began.
"I got impaled through the back with a pole. It didn't go completely through me. I don't know if that's what saved my life or not but it only just missed my heart. Like we are talking about an inch, a single solitary inch closer and it would have punctured my heart, it was so close to killing me." Lydia said rubbing her sternum through her shirt. She still remembered that pain how could she not when it was the single most painful experience of her life? The pain bit through every moment with each gasping breath. She remembered the odd feeling of blood splattering upon her lips with a staggered breath as she lay there dying. She remembered the cold, it was the first time in her life she had ever felt that cold before or since. It was as if the world had been plunged into a permanent winter where the sun never shone. She remembered looking over at the space where her mother should have been and just seeing gore and shattered fragments of bone that didn't even look like a person anymore. Her head was gone, leaving a mutilated pincushion of a mess. The windshield was long gone the car was rife with metal poles, and the driver seat was practically gone.
"I was the lucky one. Mum didn't make it and neither did the truck driver. I had to try and pull my life together after losing my mum and Delia quickly moved in with Dad to help him heal. I still think the whole thing is her fault if she hadn't been sleeping with my dad then... then who knows? Perhaps I would have a mum and half my body wouldn't be a fucked up mess". Lydia said bitterly yet she sounded a little disconnected as if she were repeating a second-hand story. There wasn't a tear in sight, so either this was a trauma response or Lydia was used to talking about the accident. Either way, Beetlejuice appreciated her talking about the difficult subject. It had been sitting heavily between them, unsaid yet obviously there. So he was glad she had finally fessed up and told him what had gone on. He was quite glad she hadn't burst into tears, he didn't quite know how to deal with a crying Lydia. Yes, she had been gently crying last night, but that had been different. It had felt like a release valve of sorts for Lydia and though it had troubled him and he had felt the urge to do something to cheer her up he had left her to it. He didn't know what he would do if she started bawling now. So he was grateful for the slight disconnect he could sense in her.
"But babes you make scars look sexy" he said with a light-hearted smile which did nothing to change the slightly bitter mood she had slipped into. But, she appreciated him trying to lighten the mood.
She wasn't sure she believed him as she was very insecure about the scars marring her back and side. However, she couldn't think of anything except the question of What if Delia never met Dad. She realised she certainly wouldn't have ended up moving to Winter River. Without the unpleasantness as Delia like to call it, she would still be living in New York. She would have never met the Maitlands that's for sure and so she would have never met Beetlejuice. Her heart sank at that thought, for some reason she couldn't think of her life without the strange perverted Ghost being in it. Her heart ached slightly at the thought or perhaps it was because they had been talking about the crash. She was unsure but she was bought out of her thoughts when he next spoke.
"Let me guess you died at some point didn't you?" He asked recognition dawning on his face as he added the scattered puzzle pieces together in his mind. It shouldn't be possible for Lydia to be here, not if what he suspected was true. He still had a few more questions for the charming woman in front of him. Which he needed answered if his theory was to be proved correct.
"Yes...Once there in the car and once when I was in the operating theatre. How did you know?" She asked but got no response as Beetlejuice seemed to be pondering his next question.
"How soon after that did you realise you could see Ghosts?" He asked Lydia as he stared her down almost as if he was daring her to lie to him.
"About a year, why...Why are you asking me all these strange questions Beej you're freaking me out" Lydia said moving away from the ghost. She felt the urge to say his name and whisk him back into the mirror. But, she was interested to learn why he was asking such a bizarre line of questions. There had to be some sort of outcome to it. She was intrigued to find out what was going on.
"One last question babes and I promise I'll drop it okay?" Beetlejuice stated to which Lydia nodded in reply.
"Okay you get one last question and then you are telling me what the hell is going on" she demanded.
"So, did your parents have a hard time conceiving you?" Beetlejuice asked out of the blue as if it was the most normal follow-up question. which caught Lydia off guard.
"Perhaps they tried everything and suddenly you arrived out of nowhere like a gift from god or some bullshit like that" She could hear the sarcasm flowing through his voice at that last part, it was clear that the ghost didn't believe in any god. Lydia wondered if he worshipped many gods, after all the man had been around for several centuries at this point. She figured that he had seen the popularity of different gods come and go over the years. So it was likely that he didn't believe in any god-like entity. Why should he when the allure of the afterlife was the main reason to believe in a theistic religion? The realities of being a ghost kind of bulldozed over any type of reason to believe in any god-like entity.
"what kind of question is that" Lydia mused annoyed that she wasn't getting any answers before she caved.
"Yes, alright they did have trouble getting pregnant now that you mention it" Lydia said utterly confused by the off-the-wall question.
"Mum said they tried everything and nothing worked. They had tried I.V.F and that didn't work. Though they eventually had me. I have no idea what they did differently but eventually, I came along. Mum used to call me her Little Gift" Lydia explained though she was still unsure why Beetlejuice was asking her about such random things. He had some sort of motive for asking these questions. They seemed random on a superficial level, but she had a feeling that under the surface they were highly calculated questions. She knew he had a motive for asking them but she couldn't figure out quite what he was getting at or why. She was incredibly confused by his behaviour. It was evident that the book freaked him out, that much was obvious. But anything more than that was an infuriating mystery to her.
Everything had sorted themselves out in Beetlejuice's head he could see everything laid out before him clear as day and it was more than a little terrifying. Bits and pieces from the corners of his subconscious mind were finally making sense. As all the tiny scraps of information he had collected over the many years he had spent in the afterlife were finally starting to make sense to him. The story wasn't quite linear in fashion but it still made sense to him, he doubted it would make sense to Lydia though. Not without explaining a lot to the gorgeous woman first.
"Babes say my name," Beetlejuice said out of nowhere.
"I need some time to think so come on Babes just say those three little words for me".