One Year

A/N: This is the re-write, the dawning of a new day for One Year. It took me a while to character analyze everybody, because let’s face it; the most consistent of the batch is Charles Deetz.

My parents were never Tim Burton fans, this led me to a generally isolated childhood in terms of Beetle Juice. Actually aside from the drink of the same name at Moxie’s Restaurant my knowledge of Beetle Juice began with watching a commercial for the cartoon which my parents never ever let me watch. I began really hunting the series with youtube, where I watched the movie through a random person I was watching, and then moved onto the cartoon series because it was in the ‘related videos’ box.

Now I’m a fangirl. Shame on you Katra21; staying up late and bouncing up and down in your stalkage.

Anyway, the real shame within the fandom is the enormous discrepancy between the movie and the TV show. However as the first episode of the cartoon dictates, it the one year anniversary of them meeting. Therefore I have that long to cover the change in character. I will be counting down the days.

Chapter One - She Looked Normal

333 Days. (October 12, Wednesday)

It was a gorgeous day. The sun was shining, almost blindingly, in a clear blue sky. The trees were just beginning to turn gold. Contrast with what leaves remained green appeared as intricate jewels from a distance. The community of Winter River, its quaint houses amplifying nature...

Lydia Deetz pedalled to school on her bike. She looked normal, if not just slightly pale; her thick shoulder length black hair fluttered just slightly.

It was too bright. Sunny and quaint are not quite our young heroine’s forte. Our darling protagonist, although finding the scenery perfect photography-wise felt that she would personally find it all much more elegant at night.

What a perfect scene it would be, bathed in darkness. Herself, one with the night, walking through the graveyard in a black and blood red dress. The sweet caress of night air, moving like a vampire with the moon shining down, that, that would be perfection.

Lydia parked her bike, waving at a few of her fellow students. It was an awkward wave, natural for someone who had only been in town for about four months. There was minimal response from the townsfolk who’d known only each other their whole lives. A New Yorker girl didn’t exactly fit in with the small town motif, but she hadn’t fit in with New York. She had only one real goal, to give off a semblance of normality.

Lydia stashed her backpack and grabbed the books for her first class, science. She sat, and the rest of the room seemed, at least to her, to deliberately sit further away. If the school were not one of uniforms then Lydia’s appearance might have justified their standoffish ways.

It was completely natural the eye shadow reminiscent look to her, they looked like bags, but Lydia slept well. Still, perhaps they could feel, if not see, the darkness of her soul through her bright but sunken eyes. She felt the need to bear her soul which came with the flurry of emotions she buried behind a blank stare.

Her journal was plain, a denim cover book with pages the color of brown sugar. Here were poems and morbid creatures given life on paper. It was a gift from the Maitlands as a sort of ‘Welcome Home’ a month prior. They had gotten worried after finding a suicide note she had composed at the time. Having a journal helped, she merely expelled her frustrations instead of having them build up within her.

Today seemed like the day to compose a suicide note.

She wasn’t planning on going through with it. More so she felt less like dying today than she’d been in a long time.

The suicide note described her woes. Being rejected her school, her parents practically ignored her, most of the time no one understood what she was talking about.

Actually when she thought about it logically there was only one thing that kept her from committing suicide, the Maitlands. Technically the Maitlands were two reasons. Barbara and Adam Maitland had practically adopted Lydia. The pair had always wanted children, and Lydia had always longed for parents who actually cared. Considering that the Maitlands were ghosts, and only Lydia could see them, the three were a match made in heaven.

After drowning and having the Deetz’s move into their house it was the immediate connection with Lydia that had stopped the ghost couple from frightening the whole family away.

Lydia finished her suicide note without writing in how she wanted to die, for the simple reason that she couldn’t think of anything. Suicide was also far less attractive when you know you’re going to be a civil servant once you hit the other end.

Closing her journal, Lydia turned her attention to class. She was the freak girl who wore dark clothing and talked to ghosts, but at least at school, she looked normal enough.

Lunchtime, alone. Lydia poked her homemade lunch with her fork. Barbara’s food was undoubtedly delicious but for some reason having everyone sitting as far from Lydia as possible it wasn’t the kind of lunch where she had an appetite.

Lydia hung her head; maybe she should’ve gotten out more during the summer, meet people. Maybe then she would have some group to lump herself in with now. True she could’ve simply gotten up and walked up to someone, asked to sit with them, try to integrate herself. She loathed the idea, communication was bad enough, forced communication would be even worse.

Still, she couldn’t enjoy her food like this. Barbara’s food would not go to waste. Lydia had too much respect to let that happen. She snuck away from the lunch tables, behind the school. She tossed her backpack over the barbed wire fence and climbed over using a rock for herself.

“Genevieve?” Lydia called and pulled the meat from her sandwich, she could stomach that much herself.

A patchy brown and white horse came wandering over from around the trees. Velvet muzzle readily accepted the sandwich that Lydia held out for her. Lydia softly caressed the mare’s neck and offered the apple from her lunch before eating the small portion of macaroni herself.

Lydia pulled a set of horse brushes from her bag and started brushing down Genevieve. “I am so lucky your master lets me do this,” Lydia beamed and finished brushing. “Alright Ginny, I’ll probably come by tomorrow too,” the soft muzzle brushed against Lydia’s hair, receiving a small giggle. Lydia tossed her bag back over and started to climb the fence, the post she climbed had its barbs cut off, so there would be no noticeable holes in her shoes or feet, and Genevieve nosed her back end to help her over so it was an easy climb. “See you later Genevieve,” Lydia called back and headed back into the school, and the torture that lay within.

“I’m home,” Lydia called as she walked in the door. The house was on its third re-decorating trip in the space of four months. Barbara and Adam were renovating it before they had died, Delia renovated it when she moved in, and now it was being renovated again. Why was the world so fickle?

Lydia’s room was fine, so long as it was dark enough to not blind her in the mornings the color mattered little. Most of her time was spent down in the basement, her darkroom, anyways.

Of course most of the renovations were to deal with a pair of holes and turning the attic into a liveable bedroom. Although ‘liveable’ wasn’t quite the word, a word had yet to be invented to properly describe the bedroom’s true function.

“Lydia, come take a look at this,” Adam called from the family room where he leaned over his town model.

Lydia trod over to the model and saw the spider that crawled along main street. “Nephila clavipes, a female golden orb-web spider. Adam, she’s beautiful,” Lydia swung her arms around the man, getting a cold tingle that moved from her arms and down her spine. It occurred whenever she touched a ghost, there was a hint of pain mixed in with the chill. It almost felt like the freezing done on warts, but milder. Lydia was addicted to that cold tingle. She let go of Adam and began coaxing the spider onto her hand, “Do you think I can keep her?”

“You need to ask your parents,” Adam said and watched the droop of Lydia’s face.

‘Parents’ was a term that had to be used loosely around Lydia. The only person in the house she was related to by blood was her father, Charles. He however was far less of a parent than even Mr. and Mrs. Maitland.

However as Lydia headed upstairs she perked up just slightly, if they didn’t care they wouldn’t start now. She could get away with anything so long as her parents didn’t understand what they were agreeing to.

“Daddy I’m keeping an orb weaver,” she said as quickly as possible before closing the door to the study.

“That’s nice dear,” he replied a minute later.

“Delia, I’ve got a new photography subject,” Lydia said in her few moments going past the door of her step-mother’s sculpting room.

“Oh that’s lovely,” Delia turned around, but Lydia was already gone.

“I think your name is Nefertiti.” Lydia said looking at the spider, she had gotten a small collection of insects since moving in, she had a big tank on her dresser and several jars that filled a shelf above it. She opened the big tank and pulled out a cocoon before placing Nefertiti within it. “You don’t mind re-locating for a while do you Crystal?” Lydia addressed the cocoon before putting it in a jar and onto the shelf.

Lydia stepped back and smiled at her collection before looking over the labels on the jars. Each had on it the species, the name, and the date of capture a few of these also had check marks, a couple of which she pulled down. “I’ll bet you two are anxious to get back outside, today’s the day.” Their jars were placed on the wardrobe next to Nefertiti’s tank as Lydia pulled open one of the drawers and pulled out something to change into. Her uniform was itchy and uncomfortable.

Lydia stood in front of her vanity, checking her appearance. The black dress was an elegant piece. It was a sleek and tight black dress with a flow of black lace for sleeves and as the bottom of the skirt. The back was laced from the waist up exposing Lydia’s back.

Scooping up the two jars and a big scrapbook Lydia headed downstairs and outside. Here she recorded the release dates before opening her jars up to the garden. The labels were peeled from the jars and placed in the scrapbook next to pictures of their respective bugs.

Her pale hand waved goodbye. Then she realized it, she had more relationship with bugs and animals than other people.

Lydia entered the house again in through the kitchen door and found Barbara, cooking. “What are you making?” Lydia asked and sat down at the table. Human communication would be a good thing. Ghosts counted as people, right?

This was an insanity issue, Lydia didn’t doubt she had the potential. The Maitlands were her sanity in a world that didn’t understand her. Charles and Delia got close; they had been able to see the Maitlands for a full week, however then they slipped back into their usual pockets of life, with the exception of having an invisible chef and craftsman.

Lydia wondered if she would ever lose the ability to see the ghosts. She couldn’t stand the possibility.

Barbara offered a freshly baked cookie, and Lydia’s head hit the table with a sigh. She wanted to be normal, but if she was normal, she would lose the only thing that kept her so.

A/N: Alright, hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I hope you enjoy my re-writes, I do believe I'lll be able to write it better and farther this time around. If you want to encourage me, or criticize me, or even flame me, please review. It will make me work faster... REVIEW!!