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“Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice,” the woman hummed, pausing before she said the name for a third time, disappointed, shaking her head and sucking her teeth. And then she smiled. It was twisted and awful, full lipped but crooked and strained where metal staples clung into her flesh and tugged.
“Such a fool,” her eyes narrowed. “And for what?” She pondered aloud in the empty gray office. “A little piece of modern trash? A little fluff of a girl?”
She stared down at the photograph, aged around the edges, placed in prominence, and felt a rush of fury course through her. With the back of her hand she sent the frame flying from the desk, the satisfying sound of glass shattering as it bounced on the floor, landing face up. The girl still looked up at her, dark eyed and sullen, through a jagged crack.
“I have done everything for you,” Dolores seethed, touching the seam that ran across her face. Beautiful in life, beautiful in death, he had told her once, fingertips coasting along the split in her face, years before when it had been held closed with black catgut. And when she pulled her hand away all she could see was her missing ring finger, sliced clean away from her hand, so that miserable sack of shit could have her ring. To give to his child bride. And where was it now? She wondered. Likely lost in the world of the living, surrounded by refuse and meat sacks.
And that was where the hatching of her plan had begun. As she whirled from the room, storming through the door, moats of paper and dust flying into the air around her.
The hall of doors. She would begin there. There was nothing, no one, that could not be seen through the correct door and Dolores had always had a knack for finding and getting exactly what she wanted.
“You can really help get me released early?” The boy hushed, gaze wide. She peered through the opening into his small spectral realm, mist covering most of the space, the stars twinkling above in the night sky.
“How many years did they give you?”
“Seventy-five.”
She nodded serenely. “And how many have you done?”
He sighed, “Twenty-nine.”
“That’s not so bad,” she replied in what she thought sounded like a patient, soothing, tone. She purred and chucked him under the chin. Barely more than pubescent but attractive; purple bags under his eyes, sallow smooth skin, a flash of dark hair tumbling onto his face. Yes, he would do well. As she finished her perusal she told him, “I was given six-hundred years haunting the woods where they stoned me to death for practicing witchcraft. They burned my body and left my familiars to rot in the soil. I had nothing.”
The boy glanced around at his own empty, sad existence. A derelict tree house, a ratty throw pillow, some books and ancient boxes games. Below was simply fallen leaves and mist.
“How far do you range before the worms come for you?” He waved vaguely into the distance toward an old covered bridge, a bike path, a crumbling road. “Did you fall?” She asked him.
“I was drunk,” he shrugged, “walking home. I don’t exactly remember.”
She nodded, grinned, watched him flinch and recoil as the staples pulled, lips spreading. “You should have jumped.” And then she turned away. “Remember what I told you,” she cast over a shoulder.
“But how will I get her here? I can’t leave.”
Dolores smirked to herself, “Let me handle that part. You just be ready when she arrives.”
“And you’ll get my time reduced?”
“Of course, darling,” she wiggled her fingers in goodbye, her right hand, the one with five.
What compelled her to flee the house that afternoon? Mom, she supposed. Nana. Grandpa’s funeral and all the bullshit that had swirled up after. Lydia holding a séance; she was ridiculous and it was Astrid who had to suffer for it. Always suffered.
“Death is hard,” mom had told her at the cemetery, looking unusually weary.
“Sometimes I think living is harder,” she replied and mom had scoffed.
She never understood.
She never fucking understood.
And then, in the attic, Astrid had found the flyer. Betelgeuse, the Bio-Exercist, an odd little cartoon of a man with a beetle’s body, holding a sledge hammer. She rolled her eyes and handed it to mom; she never liked the attic. Lydia loved it.
But she had lost her shit, flipped out about a trickster demon terrorizing her when she was young, forcing her to marry him. That woman’s bullshit was legendary and Astrid was so beyond caring about the living and the dead, the great beyond, our coexistence with the afterlife. She had been listening to it her entire life and she was over it. Over being the butt of jokes at school, over the crystals and the mysticism, over mom’s obsession with black and her stupid emo boyfriend who was somehow always around. Even at grandpa’s fucking funeral.
So like that, a switch went off, she ran from the house, the group of friends and loved ones gathered there, the ridiculous black crape covering everything as if they were royalty mourning the passing of a great king hundreds of years ago. Mom’s old bike was just there, leaned against the ancient wooden shed, as if it was meant for her to find.
Astrid hopped on and peddled away, no idea where she was going, other than away. Down the hill and across the covered bridge, the one mom put a palm too each time they came through town, without fail. Without explanation. So she would merely roll her eyes and refuse to get out of the car. And as she came to the other side she skidded to a halt as there was a boy, a guy, generally her age, standing in the road.
He gazed at her, hands tucked into the pockets of the gray well worn jeans. He wore a flannel, black chucks, her eyes raked him up and down, assessing. He didn’t look familiar; not that she had grown up there, knew everyone in town, but she thought her grandparents did. Why wasn’t he at their house, eating finger food, trying to sneak booze or whatever townie teens did?
Then he smiled.
They climbed the rough wooden boards into the treehouse; it was ancient and crumbling. Astrid found herself wanting to ask if the structure would even hold them or if they were going to come crashing down to their deaths. She scoffed, kicked her boot against the dried leaves and earth. At least then her mother might make time for her.
He glanced at her sideways, almost shy, “I uh,” he paused, stared out over the horizon then sighed, “haven’t seen you around here before.”
She nodded, agreeing with his assessment, and shrugged, in for a penny, in for a pound, and told him, “My mom grew up here. That old house on the hill.”
“Wait. The ghost house? Is your mom Lydia Deetz?”
“Unfortunately,” she nodded her head
His face lit up with excitement as he exclaimed, “She’s a legend!” More than a touch of awe in his tone and Astrid exhaled sullenly.
“I guess,” she relied feeling put out. She really never could escape Lydia Deetz and her infamy.
But he looked at her, really looked, then bumped her shoulder with his own. “I kinda think my parents suck too,” and one side of his mouth lifted.
“Yeah?” She asked.
“Yeah. So why don’t we talk about something else?”
“Like what?” She smiled, genuine and real, then.
His grin matched her own, “You like music?”
When she left, back on the bike with a wave a promise to return the next morning, Astrid’s heart, soul, felt lighter, like someone had seen her. Really seen her. Not her mother. Not Nana. Not their family’s money.
He watched her go with a hand reached out in some sort of salute.
Jeremy sighed. She was cute. He liked her.
He was almost a shame he had to push her to her death the following day. But maybe she would forgive him. Maybe you could date in the afterlife?