Out of Sight, Out of Mind//A Beetlejuice Fanfiction

||Chapter Thirty Four|| First and Foremost

"Do you remember anything happening... just before you passed out, Lydia?" continued on Barbara, moving to sit down on the bed next to the teenager, placing one of her hands on the teenager's forehead and feeling nothing but a coldness coming off from her. "Any visions or dreams? Uneasiness? Anything else?"

"Yes and no..." The teen girl fell quiet, racking her brain for the right words to say, then spoke up again. "I remember feeling a bit woozy... and kind of sickish... and experienced a vision I don't even want to mention."

Lydia tried to get out of bed, but Barbara extended out a hand and halted her. "I think you need to rest some more, sweetheart."

"I'm fine," Lydia murmured. "I'm not tired."

Barbara rolled her eyes in amusement, getting up off Lydia's bed and allowing her to get up out of it. Lydia moved around her bed and sat herself down on the edge, Barbara again sitting down next to her and beginning to rub comforting circles into the teen's back; which she most definitely needed at the moment.

Over in the corner, Adam sat at the desk that was situated over by the window/door; reading through the Handbook and jotting down as much information as he could possibly find or already knew (like the rest of the family) on the prophecy and why it had to do with Lydia herself. Barbara stood up from the bed and moved to stand over near her husband, curious over whether or not he'd found some more information on the subject.

"You find anything?" she asked, leaning over her husband's shoulder and glancing down at the near-full page of information he was almost done with.

He stopped with his note-taking, putting down the pen he'd been holding and looking up at her. "Not really. There isn't really anymore information than what we already know. I really think we're hitting a dead end on all this prophecy stuff."

Barbara spotted something she had barely noticed before, pointing it out to Adam. "What's that?"

Adam glanced back down towards the part of the page where Barbara had initially pointed towards, studying it carefully. "I'm not sure. I can barely read what that says. And it's glowing rather brightly, which makes it even more difficult to even read."

Barbara nodded in response, a serious look on her face, turning to Betelgeuse. "Can you help us figure out what the heck this says? Neither of us understand it."

Betelgeuse nodded in response, teleporting himself in a flash of light over to the Maitlands and taking a quick look at the glowing word at the bottom of the page that the Maitlands had pointed out to him. "It says 'peace', I think. It's a little too bright for me to really see."

"First it was Lydia's name and now this?" Adam stood up and turned to look at Barbara and Betelgeuse, a concerned look on his face. "You don't think both books are trying to tell us more about the prophecy. And the more we talk about it, the more information about all of this is being revealed to us? Like a series of hidden messages?"

Barbara looked down towards the carpeted floor as she placed a hand under her chin and Betelgeuse scratched his head, the two of them as concerned as Adam was.

"You do have a point," she said, flipping the page of the Handbook and glanced down at yet another glowing word right smack dab in the center of the page. "Does that say 'home' or am I just imagining things"

Adam moved over to stand over near her and glanced down at the same page, followed by Betelgeuse, the former stating, "that definitely does say home. You don't think the Handbook is telling us that it's best we figure all of this out back home in Connecticut? Because I'm getting that feeling. You?"

Barbara nodded, giving her husband a knowing look. "Yeah..." She turned her attention over to Betelgeuse as she glanced around the room at the Deetzes, all of whom had their eyes focused on all three deceased, curiosity present within their expressions. "What about you guys?"

Lydia glanced from her dad to her stepmother then focused her attention back over towards her deceased pals. "Well, I just got a vision that we were all back home and figuring out everything about this 'prophecy'."

Barbara nodded inquisitively, her, Adam, Lydia, Delia, and Betelgeuse looking over towards Charles as he scratched at his beard, deep in thought. "Then I guess we better go home again." Turning to the Maitlands, he asked, "do you guys think you can teleport all six of us downstairs or do you think that's going to be a little too much?"

"We can do it with help from Betelgeuse. Or Betelgeuse can be the one who teleports us downstairs to the lobby, as Ad and I are still newly dead ghosts and don't have as much experience as he does."

Charles nodded and Betelgeuse snapped his fingers, teleporting the lot of them, as well as all the luggage they had from both rooms, downstairs to the main floor of the hotel and the lobby.

As Charles checked them out, the other five members of the family sat off to one side and chatted away, topics including 'the prophecy' and 'what they were going to do regarding it once they teleported back into their house. Lydia sat in between the Maitlands, kicking her legs back and forth as Barbara and Adam read through the Handbook and looked for more hidden messages. So far, they'd found things like 'connection', 'vision', 'dream', 'link', 'bond', 'psychic', and 'cleave'. And they were starting to wonder what all of these words, as well as that one instance of Lydia's name and the mention of the word 'peace' had to do with one another.

Barbara flipped to the next page, her eyes widening in utter shock as she came across two glowing words that were very clearly her and Adam's names. She tapped Adam gently on the shoulder and handed the book to him, mouthing, "okay, this whole thing is getting stranger and stranger by every passing minute."