Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice

Chapter 8: Honey I'm Home

  "Morning sunshine." 
Beth's eyes flew open with a gasp. Beetlejuice was kneeling beside her bed, his face inches away from hers. "Good night's sleep?" He asked, straightening up. 
Beth sat up and pushed the covers back, "I asked you to leave." 
"But I came back!" Beetlejuice smiled. "What's the matter, sweetheart? Not pleased to see me?" 
"Absolutely not." She said, swinging her legs to one side and standing up. "You can't help me, why are you still hanging around?" 
"Nice place." He replied. "And I thought I'd wait around for your mother, see if she'll take me back." 
"You're disgusting." Lydia stretched out her arms to push Beetlejuice away from her but as her hands made contact with his chest he vanished into thin air. She turned around but he was completely gone. 
"Come on honey, time for school." Lydia stopped in the doorway, her eyes narrowed. "Oh you're already up. What are you doing?" 
Beth couldn't hide the confusion on her face. "I... I think I was sleep walking." She lied. 
"Well are you okay?" 
"I'm fine." 
Lydia pursed her lips and gave a little nod. "Get ready for school then, you've got half an hour."
She shut the door with a little click and made her way down the corridor to where her eldest daughter slept. 
Katrina was sitting in the middle of her bed, her duvet wrapped tightly around her shoulders. 
"You're not having a sick day, Katrina." Lydia warned as she tried to coax her out of bed. 
"I wasn't planning on it." Katrina said, pushing back the covers reluctantly. "Who's our visitor?"
"Visitor?" 
"Yeah... I heard Beth talking to him. Is it Uncle John?" Katrina immediately noticed the look of concerned that flashed across her mother's face. She could read her like a book. "What is it?" She pressed. 
Lydia met her daughter's eyes, "We didn't have a visitor." 

"Mom I'm trying to get dressed!" Beth screeched as her mother came careering into her room with Katrina in tow. "Ever heard of knocking?" 
"Who was in here?" Lydia demanded. 
"What?"
"Who was in here, Beth? Kat heard a voice."
"No one." 
Lydia bit her lip, "Don't lie to me, Lydia. If something's going on I need to know. Are you in danger?" 
"There was no one in here." Beth fixed her eyes on Lydia. "Maybe Katrina's just wrong." 
Lydia studied her daughter's face again and found nothing but sincerity in it. 
"Fine." She sighed, "Fine. But you better not be lying to me, miss." 

  The walk to school felt much longer that morning and Beth hardly said a word the entire journey. 
"Are you okay?" Katrina asked, eyeing her sister with suspicion. 
"I'm fine." Beth replied. She was lucky that her emotions were not as close to the surface as her mothers, because on the inside her stomach was churning and she couldn't work out why. Of course it was to do with Beetlejuice, something about the man just gave her the creeps.... she had this terrible notion that he would appear suddenly in the middle of class and do something awful. It also seemed like simply asking him to leave was not the way to get rid of him because he had come back. 
"You sure you're good?" Katrina put a hand lightly on Beth's shoulder. 
"I'm fine!" She retaliated, pulling back from her sister. "Stop going on." 

  As soon as her girls had gone to school Lydia set to work replying to letters and making necessary phone calls- doctor's appointments, chasing up online orders, something about a TV license they didn't really need because no one ever bothered to watch it. When that was done she had a glass of wine, something she seldom did nowadays, and then started on the house. It was hard being a single mother, even if she'd only been one less than a year. The mess two girls alone  could make was incredible. 
At half twelve she scooped a handful of dirty laundry from Katrina's bedroom floor and staggered across the landing with it, stopping by the stairway to the attic and pricking up her ears at the faint rumbling she could hear from above. Like the sound of furniture being shifted around. Her heart began to beat and in an instant she had left the washing on the carpet and jumped up the stairs two at a time. 
She paused outside the attic door before knocking and called softly through the keyhole, "Barbara? Adam? It's Lydia... are you there?" 
Silence. Lydia drew in her breath ready to sigh but it caught in her throat and came out as a little sob when she finally got her reply. Barbara's sweet voice, once so familiar came back to her,
"Lydia! Come in, we've missed you." 
Lydia turned the doorknob and in her haste practically fell into the room, a huge smile on her face. 
"Hi honey, I'm home." The smile vanished and she was overwhelmed with nausea. Barbara and Adam were nowhere to be seen. Instead Beetlejuice sat in the armchair like a king on a throne, his hands on the arm rests, his legs straight out in front of him, even more grotesque now than she had remembered. She shrunk back instinctively and tried to close the door behind her, but in a second there he was, standing between her and the stairway. 
He held his arms out wide, "Now what about that wedding, huh?" He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the ground as she struggled to free herself. "You're my one-that-got-away... what do you say we pick up where we left off?" He put her back down on shaky legs but Lydia found enough strength in her voice to fight back. 
"Don't you dare touch me again." She said through gritted teeth. "I'm not a kid anymore."
"So sue me!" Beetlejuice laughed, his eyes widening. "Can you take legal action against the dead?" 
Lydia tried to push past him but he was a great deal taller and stronger than she was and soon she was pressed right back up against the door again, Beetlejuice blocking her escape path. 
"Where are the Maitlands?" She demanded, her arms outstretched to keep him away from her. 
"I sent them away for a bit. Thought we could have some time alone, what do you say?" 
"What have you done to them?"
"Relax!" He grinned, "You can't see them anyway." 
Lydia paused to let his laugh run it's course before she said, "How did you get here?" 
"Your little daughter. She's very pretty, just like her mother." He grabbed her hand and planted a kiss on the back of it before she had a chance to snatch it away. "If you don't want me-"
"Don't you dare go anywhere near either of them!" She cut him off instantly. 
"So she has got an older sister... I'd been wondering." 
"Yeah, well my kid might not know how to get rid of you but I sure do." Lydia replied coldly. "Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetle-" her breath hitched in her throat as Beetlejuice's bony hands clamped around her shoulders and whirled her around. She lost her footing on the top of the stairs and before she could grab hold of his jacket to save herself she was falling. The last thing she heard before giving in and shutting her eyes was the sound of her head hitting the bottom step. And though her vision was blurry she could just make out Beetlejuice's black and white suit hovering by the attic door.