Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice

Chapter One: Winter River, Connecticut

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," The vicar's voice blurred into white noise as he thumbed the pages of his little black book. The congregation stood huddled on all sides of the open grave, clad in black and wet through with the hard January rain. 
A few handfuls of dirt were thrown onto the varnished brown lid of the coffin, landing with a dull thud and obscuring the "Samuel Kirke" name plaque.
  Lydia felt a tug at her side and looked down to see her youngest daughter, Beth, staring up at her. she stooped down and swung the child onto her hip, letting her bury her head in her hair.
The wind was whipping around the graveyard with such ferocity that it propelled the mourners out of the church gates and back into the "real world" faster than their feet could ever do alone .
  Lydia felt her arms tiring. She tried to put Beth down but the girl clung to her.
"Katrina!" She called back through the throng of people. "Kat! Take your sister. I have to go and speak to people."
Katrina didn't argue, as she was prone to do. so like her father in everyway. she had his light hair, his logical brain and his argumentative streak- the thing which had made him such a good lawyer in life and now was set to send his daughter down the same path. But today Katrina knew better than to fight back and took her sister from her mother without a word.

  "The house seems very lonely now, doesn't it." Beth said that night as her mother ushered her upstairs to bed.
"It does." Lydia replied, "But it won't do forever, sweetheart. I promise."
"Well he isn't coming back."
Lydia stifled a laugh. it was so like Beth to say something of the sort. At eight years old she was already a cynical little madam. It was so hard not to be amused when she looked at you with those large, dark eyes, pulled a face and make some comment to stop you in your tracks and wonder how such a little girl could come out with something so apt and to the point. Beth was sharp. It often made Lydia feel like she was mothering a grown woman. or, more accurately, like Beth was a carbon copy of herself that age but with a much faster brain.

  "Beth's right." Lydia said, throwing herself onto the sofa. "This house is very lonely now."
"I hate it here." Katrina sniffed. "I've always hated it here but I hate it more now dad's gone."
"Then we'll move." Resolved Lydia, who felt much the same and needed no persuading.
Katrina scoffed, her mom was always this sarcastic. But when she saw her drag the newspaper towards her across the coffee table she realised that Lydia was far from joking.
"You can't be serious!" She said. "We've only just buried him."
"Why not?" Lydia raise a brow. "You hate it. I hate it. Beth isn't happy. so we'll move."
"We've never lived anywhere else."
"I have."
"But what about school."
"Kat, you don't like anyone at your school, it's no loss."
Katrina slumped into the arm chair. "Dad died two weeks ago and we're already leaving the family home."
"Would you calm down!" Lydia fixed her eyes on her daughter with an obtuse glare. "I'm only looking." Katrina sulked and folded her arms across her chest stubbornly. "Your ad wouldn't want us to stay anywhere we weren't happy."
  Sometimes when a person is reading, a word or perhaps a sentence will jump off the page at them and catch their eye. usually because the word triggers a memory of some sort, like a name or a place. this happened when Lydia skim read the property pages of her newspaper and the words "Winter River, Connecticut" leapt up to meet her. Beside those words, to her astonishment, was a bright landscape photo of her childhood home. it was a vast, sprawling property, bright white, with small windows and steps up to a large front door. Little had change since Lydia had seen it last, some twenty odd years ago.
"Beetlejuice." She mumbled, almost instinctively.
"What?" Katrina's voice broke into her thoughts.
"Oh. Nothing." Lydia pursed her lips, afraid the name would escape her again.
She rea the article with a longing to jump into that photo and run up to her old front door.
"If they don't sell it it's going to property developers!" She cried, indignantly.
"Mom, what are you talking about?"
Lydia scuttled across the room and perched on the arm of Katrina's chair, hurling the paper into her lap and pointing.
"That's my house."
"Your house? The haunted one?" Lydia hadn't told her girls about Beetlejuice for fear they'd call in him and he'd wreak havoc in their lives. But she had told them a little about Barbara and Adam, or as she liked to call them; "The ghosts I grew up with." Katrina had laughed it off of course, but Beth was interested and the questions kept coming.
"Let's go there!" She beamed.
"I thought you were just looking?"
"I can't let it be sold off for apartments, or a hotel, or whatever they plan on doing with it. Barbara and Adam will be distraught."
Katrina rolled her eyes. "Whatever, I'm off to bed."
  Lydia sat for a few moments in silence, chewing on her bottom lip and considering her options. Then, without another moments hesitation she wrote down the telephone number.