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

||Chapter Thirty Six|| Close Call

Strange, unusual, family, six...

More and more glowing words were starting to appear in the Handbook, and the Maitland-Deetzes were starting to piece things together. The words were starting to relate to their family life and afterlife. And they had the distinctive feeling that the prophecy extended out to include them and not just Lydia. And, to be fair, as always, Lydia needed her family by her side.

Barbara was spending some time in the living room with Charles and Delia, the three of them sat on the couch, laughing and talking over a variety of subjects. Betelgeuse was currently in the Netherworld and helping Miss Argentina with something after the latter  had said that she needed him to be there. No one knew when he'd be back.

Adam was upstairs with Lydia, in the latter's bedroom, helping the teenager out with finding and decoding any new glowing words that could've potentially appeared in the Handbook for the Recently Deceased overnight. And them finding much of anything would be considered an understatement. Adam scratched his head as he looked through the book again then promptly turned his attention onto Lydia, who had rolled her chair over to the middle of her bedroom and was now spinning in it at such a fast pace.

"Lydia," he spoke up, a hint of amusement in his voice. But there was also a hint of sternness in his voice as well, which Lydia caught immediately and stopped what she was doing. "Are you supposed to be doing that?"

When the chair stopped spinning, its back was facing Adam. And Lydia was now kneeling on it, peering over its back at the stern looking male ghost with a pleading pout plastered across her face. "Awwww... C'mon, Adam! Can you please use your powers to make my chair spin at a fast rate on its own? I want to just sit in it as it spins. And not have to kick my feet in order to make it spin."

"Not right now, Lyd. We still need to find any more glowing words that could have appeared in the Handbook."

"Later?"

"No, Lydia."

Lydia sighed, standing up and pushing her chair over next to where Adam was standing and again looking through the Handbook. As the teenager sat herself down on the chair and face planted on her desk, Adam stopped on a certain page and looked over a word carefully. He was sure that particular word wasn't glowing the last time he read through the Handbook and now that it was...

'That's strange,' he thought to himself as he studied the word for a few more seconds before writing it down on a piece of paper that contained all the other glowing words that they'd found.

The word in question was 'close'.

Adam closed the Handbook, levitating it and the list of glowing words into the air as he made his way over to the door to Lydia's bedroom and exited it, closing the door behind him and turning to head downstairs. Lydia, who had been taking a short nap, stood up immediately afterwards, now hungry, and made her way downstairs for lunch.

Adam sat on the couch to the right of Barbara, with Charles and Delia still sat to the female ghost's left, and he was going over the list of words with them. The Handbook was sat, still closed, on the coffee table in front of them.

"So far," Adam spoke up as he read through the list of words that he was now holding in his hands. "We've got a plethora of words like close, boundary, strange, unusual, family, six, cleave, home, peace, vision, dream, psychic, connection, link, bond, my name, Barbara's name, and Lydia's name." He stopped talking for a few minutes, them added, in a joking sort of manner, "what's next? Charles' name? Delia's name? Betelgeuse's name?"

He put the list of words he'd been holding down on the coffee table and picked up the Handbook, opening it when Barbara pointed out the glowing page in the middle of what they now knew was the section on mediumship and flipping to said page.

Upon seeing the glowing words (or rather names) on the page, Adam's eyes widened and he looked from Barbara to Charles and Delia and then back down towards the Handbook for the Recently Deceased, looking at each of the words again to make sure he wasn't imagining things (which he wasn't).

"Is it me or is the Handbook for the Recently Deceased listening to us? Because now it's showing Charles, Delia, and Betelgeuse's names."