Timeless (Beetlejuice x Reader)*COMPLETED*

Chapter 10

"And here we have the grave of Melody Winsorr, who was a local author."

I led the Deetzes up to the large, marble headstone. Inscribed was her date of birth, date of death, and her likeness. I smiled and brushed my fingers across the words.

The man and his wife took pictures across the path, which left the young girl and me at Melody's grave. I started slightly when the flash on her camera went off.

"Was she a relative?" she asked softly.

I smiled. "I guess, in a way."

She didn't ask any more questions, just nodded and snapped a couple more pictures of the headstone. "She seems like she was a happy person."

I smiled again. "She was."

The girl arched an eyebrow at me.

My eyes widened as I realized my slip-up. My brain went into overdrive mode as it searched for a way to back-pedal out of this mess.

"At least, that's what I'm told. She was close friends with my great-great-great grandma...," I said, waving my hand as if it were no big deal.

The teen obviously wasn't a hundred percent sold on my story, but she didn't ask any questions, so we moved on.

The man and woman were still a ways in front of us, talking quietly between themselves, so I hung back with the young girl.

"So. What's your name?" I asked, feeling the urge to strike up a conversation with this teen.

"I'm Lydia."

"Lydia, huh? I like that name. I think it suits you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

We walked a couple moments in silence, and I could tell Lydia seemed to grow more and more comfortable and relaxed the more we talked.

"So, how bout you?"

"Hm?"

"What's your name?"

"Oh! I'm (Y/N). Sorry, I guess I should've told you guys that at the start of the tour," I said sheepishly.

Lydia smiled. "That's okay." She glanced at the couple still a little ways in front of us. "Sorry about them. You'd think they hadn't seen each other in decades, with the way they're constantly up under each other."

I smiled good-humoredly. "Don't worry about it. I get to hang out with you!" I said, elbowing her playfully. She smiled at the ground. "Plus, your dad and mom seem like really nice people."

"She's not my mom."

I was a little taken aback by her blunt frankness. "Oh?"

"She's my step-mom. My mom died when I was fifteen."

My countenance softened. "Oh, Lydia, I am so sorry. I lost my mom when I was younger, too, so I know how hard that can be," I said, gently placing a hand on her left shoulder.

"Yeah, it is hard, but I'm learning to accept Delia into the family. And, as hard as it is, I know my mom would want me to move on and really live life, not waste it by sitting around wondering about 'maybe's' or 'what-if's'."

She was so mature for her age. The way she spoke about this issue made me think that Lydia had gone through quite a bit of a rough patch to get to this conclusion.

"Quite a bit of a rough patch"? Okay, can someone please award me the "understatement of the year" award? Yes, thank you. I'd like to thank the little people....

We finally came to stop in front of the next stop, one that held a particularly painful memory, for me.

"This," I said, taking a deep, but shaky breath to try to steady my emotions, "is the grave of a young student who died here at Juilliard, which is a couple blocks away."

"Oh my gosh."

Lydia immediately got super excited and started snapping a million photos of this headstone. I just stood there in confusion.

"This is gonna sound really weird, but can you get a picture of me with the headstone?" Lydia asked me eagerly, sliding the camera strap up over her head.

I stared at her in confusion. "Um. Sure?"

She thrust the camera into my hands and hurried over beside the headstone, posing dramatically. I snapped a few pics before she was satisfied and came back over to me.

"Thanks! He's gonna get a kick out of these," she said, looking through the pictures I had taken.

"Um, who?"

She glanced up at me. "Oh, I just have a friend back home who's obsessed with astronomy, and that guy's middle name is also the name of a German star."

I was surprised her or her friend knew this, but chose not to question it.

"Alright, then. Um, shall we move on?"

"Oh, well I think you were in the middle of talking about this guy when I kinda, interrupted. Sorry."

"It's fine," I assured her, smiling. "Um, so, yeah, this gentleman was in fact a student at Juilliard. In 1811 local authorities..." I took another deep breath and put on a mask of disconnected sympathy. "...Local authorities found his body handing from the ceiling in his apartment. There was no suicide note, and no perceived motives, so his death to this day remains a mystery."

To all but one.

"Weird," Lydia mumbled, seeming genuinely interested.

I nodded. "But also sad," I added, following her down the path away from Lawrence's grave and many painful memories.

~

"Well, that concludes our tour! Thank you guys so much for choosing Star Guide Touring Services, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of the day!"

"Actually," Charles Deetz, the man with the beard and Lydia's father, said, pulling me and his wife Delia to the side. "My wife and I have been talking, and if you're interested, we'd like to offer you a job."

I was taken aback. Okay. That just happened.

"I'm listening," I said, my head cocked to the side curiously.

"Well, lately, Lydia's been really struggling in her history class at school," Delia explained. "She also doesn't let herself make friends." We all looked over to Lydia, who was snapping away with her camera. "I think she's afraid she'll end up losing them like she did her mom."

I know the feeling.

"But we noticed the way she talked and listened to you today," Charles said. "You really engaged her, and I noticed you made her laugh a couple of times. That's something she hasn't done in a while."

"So.... what exactly are you asking me to do?"

Charles and Delia shared a hopeful, yet nervous look.

"We want to hire you to tutor Lydia."

I didn't really mind that at all.

"Okay. I'll need some more details, though," I replied.

"Well, we would pay you $500 per session, four days a week. However, because of the fact that we live out of town, you would have to stay either at a hotel or apartment, or you could stay in our own home free of charge."

My mouth hung open at this offer. Two-thousand bucks for a four-day week, plus free room and board? Sign me the heck up!

"I will... sleep on it, then get back to you first thing tomorrow morning," I replied, not wanting to sound too eager.

"Of course, here's my card," Charles replied, handing me his business card. "I look forward to hearing from you, Miss (Y/L/N)."

With that, they departed, leaving me in the empty cemetery with nothing but graves and my own thoughts.