Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Lydia Deetz. According to her previous school, a bright and creative girl. According to her father when he enrolled her in a new one, dealing with a lot of recent changes in her life. But that’s nothing the teachers there haven’t had to deal with before. Nonetheless, they soon find that she has the tendency to be the brand of opinionated that makes a teacher’s day a little more... tiring. The brand of opinionated that leads to her religious education teacher, Mr Peters, phoning her dad after class a few weeks into her first term.

Over the phone, Charles finds it hard to get a clear picture of what, exactly, the issue is. Something about Lydia’s project on afterlife beliefs? Regardless, he’s always preferred to talk in person, so he’s the one to suggest they meet. Which is how he came to be sat in a plastic chair beside his rather annoyed daughter in her RE classroom once the rest of the students have gone home.

Since she’s gone back to school, Charles has noticed that Lydia’s dress sense has become something of a duality. Either she gets up at her first alarm at seven and puts together one of her elaborate goth ensembles, or sleeps in until the second alarm half an hour later and throws on a hoodie and jeans. Today, it seems, she’s gone with the latter, hood pulled over her head and hands shoved in the pocket in a classic disgruntled teenager pose.

“I’m not sure if it was just a case of losing interest,” the teacher is saying, “since the first parts of the project - the research on various religious teachings and beliefs - are up to her usual standard. But the real issue I wanted to discuss today is Lydia’s attitude when asked about her report.”

Charles nods and turns to his daughter, and for a moment is struck by how dramatic she manages to make the act of sitting. A practiced art, he supposes.

“Lydia,” he says, “firstly, put your hood down, please. Thank you. Now, can you tell me what about this has, uh… upset you?”

Though she shoves her hands deeper into her pockets, the girl keeps her head up as she answers him. “Mr Peters seems to think I wasn’t taking the part of the project where you’re supposed to give your own thoughts on afterlife beliefs seriously. Because I wrote about ghosts.”

Ah. Charles is rather sure he knows where this is going.

“But I was,” she continues. “Dad, you know I’d take that seriously.”

For a moment her eyes widen slightly, worried. He gives her a small nod, confirming that yes, he sees that. He knows.

“Mr Peters, what about Lydia’s project made you think she wasn’t taking it seriously?”

Raising his eyebrows fractionally, the teacher moves something to sit between them on the desk. It’s some sort of clearly handmade booklet, presumably the afterlife beliefs project at the centre of all this. He flicks through to the last few pages as he speaks.

“The instructions for the last section of the project were to explain your own thoughts on the beliefs researched, and then perhaps share any beliefs or practices you might have in regards to the afterlife. Lydia did the first section well, and then went on to explain her own specific beliefs about ghosts. Now I don’t have a problem with that, I’m not here to judge what any student believes, though it was presented more as fact which I generally discourage. My issue was in the fact that as this section went on it seemed to me like Lydia was treating this less as a statement of sincerely-held beliefs and more of a creative writing exercise.”

“How so?”

“Well.” The man pauses to put on his glasses, picking up the booklet and reading aloud.

“‘We have two ghosts ‘living’ in our house with us, and a demon that visits regularly. The ghosts are the previous owners, Adam and Barbara Maitland, and did not proceed to the Netherworld after the living room floor collapsed and they fell into the basement and broke most of their bones and then died. They moved into the attic when we moved in and are very pleasant housemates. I decided to interview them for this project because they know more about being dead than me.’”

“Bet nobody else had primary sources,” Lydia mumbles, but her comment goes unacknowledged as the teacher hands her project over to her dad.

“She then goes on to record a sort of chatlog of this interview,” Mr Peters continues, pausing to allow Charles to read a snippet himself.

QUESTION: What do you spend your time doing and how does it differ from what you did when you were alive?

BARBARA: Well, we don’t have to go to work anymore, so that’s nice.

ADAM: It’s a bit like an early retirement! In a way.

BARBARA: We can’t go outside, so we’ve been working on going through all the old stuff up here in the attic we never used. Sometimes we find things that we think we actually do want to try or projects we really want to finish, but most of the time we just get rid of it.

ADAM: We break stuff! Very cathartic. But one old project I'm not going to be getting rid of anytime soon is the good ol’ model village. Started it in life, and now I’ve got eternity to finish it. Nice to know I can take my time with it- not that I wasn’t before, of course, but it’s still… relaxing, y’know?

"When I asked about the end of her project, Lydia insisted that these were genuine firsthand accounts from dead people," the teacher explains, prompting Charles to look up from the booklet. "She claimed I was accusing her of falsifying evidence."

Lydia doesn't say a word, but her dad can tell from the look on her face that she'd like to double down on her claim. A claim that he might not have put quite so bluntly, but that he knows is technically true.

"Well," he begins, and suddenly she's giving him that wide-eyed look again. She knows that he knows she's right, but she doesn't seem sure he's going to say it. He sets the booklet down, choosing his words carefully.

“With all due respect, Mr Peters, I think there’s been a... misunderstanding. I don’t see anything here that isn’t Lydia’s sincerely-held beliefs.”

Eyebrows raised, the teacher pauses for a moment, thrown off his rhythm. He spins the booklet around on the desk and scans the pages, like he’s expecting to find something glaringly obvious he missed the first time, something that will make this make sense.

“Lydia,” he asks after a moment, “Can you tell me, truthfully, that it’s your sincerely-held belief that a ghost is building a model village in your attic?”

The girl rather nonchalantly nods. “Yeah. It’s quite impressive, actually.”

“...The ghost or the town?”

“The town. I mean, Adam is kinda impressive just in the fact that he’s a ghost, but - and I say this with immense affection - as far as ghosts go he’s kinda just some guy. But our some guy, y’know?”

Mr Peters stares blankly at her for a moment. She stares back, a smile beginning to creep onto her face. Her dad’s given her an inch in his addressing of the issue, and he can’t help thinking she’s prepared to take a mile.

“...Right.” The teacher returns his attention to the page, fiddling with his glasses, perhaps looking for something that will trip her up and expose a ruse.

How naive.

“And you also believe - as you’ve written here - that these ghosts will levitate you if you get good grades?”

“Yeah, they promised.” She pulls a hand from her pocket to hold to her chest in mock hurt, eyebrows raised. “Are you accusing the ghosts in my attic of lying too?”

“No, I-”

“Lydia,” Charles warns. “That’s not what he’s asking, is it?”

She rolls her eyes, huffing. “Alright. Yes, I do sincerely believe that the Maitlands promised to levitate me if I get good grades. And I also sincerely believe they’ll follow through on it, for the record. They’re trustworthy spectres.”

“Okay, and-”

“Mr Peters, is this necessary?” Charles cuts in. They’ll be here all night if this carries on; he knows Lydia would be willing to continue the debate into the early hours. “Lydia firmly believes she can communicate with the ghosts in the attic, I can vouch for that.”

The teacher looks a little startled, fiddling with his glasses again. “I… Well, yes, I see that now. I was just making sure-”

“I thought you said you weren’t here to judge students’ beliefs?” Lydia asks innocently, resting her elbows on the desk, chin on her folded hands.

“As I said, it’s perfectly fine that you believe there’s ghosts in your attic.”

“And that I believe I can talk to them?”

“...Yes.”

“Well, I’m glad we got that settled,” Charles says.

“Can we go now?” Lydia adds hopefully.

“Not quite yet,” the teacher says, and Lydia - who had raised her head off her hands expectantly - slumps back in her chair. “I want to reiterate that though it is perfectly fine that you believe in ghosts, you can’t be asserting their existence as fact in your papers.”

“But-”

“I understand that that’s what it is for you, but just as a Catholic student cannot cite the Bible as fact, you can’t assert what you’ve quoted ghosts as saying to be genuine without concrete proof that ghosts exist, which you certainly will not be able to provide in the timespan of an RE exam.”

At first Lydia looks like she’s about to argue, but after a moment sitting with her brow furrowed in thought she shrugs, taking a pen out of her pocket and dragging the booklet towards her. Looking over her shoulder, Charles can see that she’s begun an effort to squeeze ^ I sincerely believe that between what looks like every other line.

“When did you do this interview?” he asks, out of pure curiosity. “It looks rather detailed.”

“Last week, when it was set,” she says, not looking up, scanning the page for another place to write. “I mentioned the idea to Barbara when I got home and she seemed really flattered, so I went and wrote the questions.”

“Looks like you put a lot of effort in.”

“I did, actually.” There’s a hint of bitterness in her tone. The man puts a hand on his daughter’s shoulder, turning to the teacher who, to his credit, is now looking a little guilty.

“I trust that after this conversation, and once Lydia has finished… editing, you’ll re-mark this section for her, with the effort she put in?”

“I- Well, yes, I can do that. Lydia, if you drop that in sometime tomorrow-”

“Nah, hang on,” Lydia says, still scribbling furiously. “There. Done.”

She hands it back. The teacher seems to regard the booklet - now significantly messier than it was five minutes earlier - with some suspicion, but takes it regardless.

“Is that all you wanted to discuss, Mr Peters?” her dad asks.

“Yes, yes that’s it, thank you,” Mr Peters replies. He looks incredibly tired.

Lydia grabs her satchel as the two men shake hands, giving her teacher a quick “bye” before they leave. To Charles, it sounds just a little smug. She’s snickering to herself as soon as they’re out of the room.

“You really turned the fucking tables on him, huh?”

“Language, Lydia.”

“It’s the truth! And thanks, by the way.”

“Well, what else was I going to do? Claiming you don’t believe in ghosts would be the biggest lie I’ve ever told, and besides, I wouldn’t want all that effort you put in to go to waste.”

She smiles shyly. “Yeah… We only actually only needed to write one paragraph. D’you think he’ll have to give me extra credit now? D’you think the Maitlands will levitate me if he does? I should get a photo, show Mr Peters.”

“Give the poor man a rest, Lydia. You’re going to break him.”

“Oh, I know. Now I think about it, it’s probably a good thing I decided not to write about that one time we went to hell.”

Charles raises his eyebrows. Just thinking about how he’d explain that one is quickly giving him a headache.

“...Yes,” he agrees. “Yes, that was probably for the best.”

Chapter Text

The second time he receives a phone call from school, it isn’t Charles’ choice to come in and discuss the matter in person; Lydia’s English teacher and head of the department, Mrs Aldridge, is the one to request his presence. It’s something about a projector, apparently.

As with the last time, he meets Lydia at reception so she can lead the way to the right classroom. But unlike the last time, she doesn’t spend the walk stewing in silent anger.

“Okay, so… I may have made a bit of a miscalculation…” she admits, not looking up at her dad as they walk down the corridor.

“In what way?”

“I- it was an accident. I fucked up severely.”

“Language, Lydia.”

“Well I don’t think ‘messed up’ really cuts it.”

Though he gives her time to, she doesn’t elaborate, fidgeting with the hem of her dress and pretending to be looking at the displays on the walls as they walk.

“Do you want to explain now,” he prompts after a few moments, “or would you rather wait for your teacher to tell me what’s happened?”

“I… I don’t know, I just- It was an accident, Dad, I swear. A stupid accident I should have seen coming, but still an accident.” She balls up her dress in her fist, and finally looks up at him. “...Do you believe that?”

His first instinct is to tell her that he’ll need to wait for the full story to answer that, but looking down at her… He’s seen his daughter acting. It’s, for lack of a better word, big. But now she seems so small.

“...Yes. I believe you. And thank you for taking responsibility for whatever’s happened, even if you didn’t mean for it to happen.”

She gives him a queasy-looking smile, still gripping her dress.

Once they’ve made their way to the English department office - a small room squeezed in between two classrooms - and introductions have been made, Charles asks the teacher for the story. The ‘scene,’ as she puts it, happened while students were sharing literary analysis they’d written on passages from books that interested them, and Mrs Aldridge had asked Lydia to read out the relevant paragraph of her book. And then the projector started switching images of its own accord.

“Ghosts, it was showing,” the teacher recounts. “Ghosts and ghouls and all manner of things I would not consider classroom-appropriate.”

“Such as…?” Charles inquires, wanting to clarify where on the scale of bedsheet ghosts to emotionally unstable rampaging demons to mentally file this particular Lydia-related occurrence.

For a few moments the teacher seems to fumble for eloquent wording. “...Various ways in which one could become a ghost,” she settles on. “Decomposition. And what I can only describe as oblivion. The images were vague, almost like an unfocused shadow puppet performance, but they were enough for one student to throw up in his deskmate’s backpack. Which is a whole other issue that I think Lydia should count herself lucky not to be held accountable for.”

She fixes her student with an impressively hard stare, one that makes Charles uncomfortable just by being in the vicinity.

“Now,” she continues, turning to Charles, “I won’t pretend to know how Lydia did it, but I’m sure it was against the students’ IT user agreement.”

“I couldn’t say I know either,” Charles says, then turns to his daughter. He’s curious to know not only how she managed to hack a projector, but how she managed to do it by accident. Because he does still believe it was an accident; Lydia has picked up an occasionally unfortunate habit of doing the impossible lately. It takes a few moments for her to respond.

“It… it was the book,” she eventually mumbles.

“The book?” Mrs Aldridge echoes. She sounds more disappointed than anything, apparently assuming - as one logically would - that this is a flimsy attempt to avoid responsibility. But to Charles, the admission is a little more alarming.

“Lydia,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady in front of the teacher, “which book were you reading?”

The girl doesn’t answer, at least not verbally; after a few more moments of fidgeting uncomfortably with her dress, she leans down to rummage in her bag and extract a battered hardback book. It’s held open by elastic bands binding its covers to a wooden ruler, scraps of notebook paper poking out from between the pages.

“Lydia, is that-?”

“The handbook for the recently deceased,” she mumbles. “We were supposed to write about what we’ve been reading, and that is what I’ve been reading. I’ve been studying it.”

“How did you even get it open?”

She tenses. “I, uh… I asked Beej…”

“Was it his idea to read it out in class too?” Charles asks, wondering if this is about to turn into another conversation about how much we should really be forgetting what we’ve forgiven.

“No! No, Mrs Aldridge asked me to, I thought it was a benign passage! I was trying to just pass it off as fiction but… I told you, I messed up.”

For a moment Charles considers asking if she remembers what happened the last time Lydia thought she understood that book, but decides against it. That’s not something that needs bringing up right now - or ever, if it’s going to be used to make her feel guilty - and from the look on her face she’s already made the connection herself.

He sighs. “You know how dangerous that was, don’t you?”

She nods.

“I don’t want that book leaving the house in future, alright? And no more reading it out loud. It’s lucky it only messed with the projector.”

Again, Lydia nods, passing her dad the book when he holds out his hand for it. He’s just started pulling off the elastic so he can close the damn thing and move on from the matter when the teacher speaks up again, and he remembers this isn’t a conversation between just him and his daughter.

“Mr Deetz,” the woman on the other side of the desk says, “how, exactly, does this book relate to the projector?”

He lets the band snap back onto the page, glancing again at Lydia. She barely holds his gaze for a second before looking down at her lap again, apparently at just as much of a loss for how to explain this as he is. It would be easy, he knows, to say she used the book deliberately somehow; keep the details vague and go along with the hacking assumption, let the kid take the full blame for the incident. But that doesn’t sit right with him. It was a mistake, and one she’s already accepted responsibility for, at that. As irresponsible as she’s been, it wouldn’t be fair to let her be punished as if she’s done something intentionally malicious.

So the question remains; how could she have hacked a projector by accident?

“The book? Well, it… it interferes with computers?” Charles tries, grasping at the first excuse that comes to mind as he gingerly sets the book back on the desk. Both Lydia and her teacher are giving him an odd look, and he doesn’t blame them in the slightest, but he’s said it now. He’s got to commit. “It’s something to do with… voice-activated systems…?”

Mrs Aldridge doesn’t look any more impressed at that than she did at Lydia’s initial admission of the book’s involvement. “I wasn’t aware the school had any voice-activated systems,” she points out.

“It might have been in an update,” Lydia jumps in, something that Charles is glad for. “I’m pretty sure the school’s computers were updated recently, weren’t they? Some operating system updates do weird stuff, we’ve been having this whole ordeal with the computer at home, right Dad?” And there’s that big acting. How Charles ever thought she was being genuine at that business dinner remains a somewhat shameful mystery.

“...Right,” Charles agrees, dragging his mind back to the matter at hand. “I didn’t think I had any voice things either, until it went off by accident.”

From the look on Lydia’s face, Charles knows this is a flimsy excuse. He just has to hope that the teacher doesn’t know any more about computers than he does, and takes his daughter’s wide-eyed expression to be a show of situationally-appropriate nerves. But to his relief, the nod the woman gives him is the furrowed-brow, pursed-lip nod of someone who really shouldn’t be nodding at all.

“I see,” she says, clearly not seeing.

Lydia seems to see right through the teacher too, and the assurance that she’s got her on the hook relaxes the girl a little. “It’s something about the kind of language the book uses,” she explains. “It’s because it’s written like instructions, I think, certain command words set off programs by accident. We only found out the other day because I wanted to show Dad this interesting passage, and it started running all these tasks on his laptop.”

Again, she looks to him to continue. “It… Yes, it did, yes,” he fumbles. She’s weaving this cover story a little fast for him to keep up with, and he can only hope the teacher is having the same issue. He’s not sure whether he should be proud of how easily it comes to his daughter. “It was quite inconvenient, it took us a while to figure out what was happening and shut it all off. Your projector, you said it was showing-?”

“Ghosts, and ghost-related imagery.”

“Because that’s what the book’s about,” Lydia again jumps in before he can come up with his own explanation. “The systems get activated by certain words and then it listens to the passage about ghosts and you end up with… that. Look, I’ll show you.”

Though Lydia reaches for the book again, Charles rather loudly puts a hand on the tome before her fingers can so much as brush the pages, fixing her with a warning look.

“I don’t think that will be necessary, Lydia,” he says sternly.

Lydia stares back at him, her calm in-control expression momentarily replaced by more of a deer-in-headlights look.

“Right! Right, yeah, sorry. Got a little bit carried away there.”

She looks down at the book, and then to her teacher, her dad, and back to the book.

“...And I’m sorry about the projector,” she says, a bit quieter. “I knew the book can mess up computers and I just assumed I understood it, and I don’t. I shouldn’t have read it out, that was stupid. I- messed up.”

Charles puts a hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t look up. He turns to the teacher instead.

“Before we came into the room, Lydia owned up to her mistake and took responsibility,” he explains. “I understand that fact can’t free her from the consequences of her actions, but I won’t have this treated as if it were deliberate.”

He says that last part rather sternly, but it looks as though it wasn’t necessary. The teacher seems to be still wrapping her head around the concept of books with hacking abilities. She nods vaguely, taking a moment to let the conversation catch up in her head.

“Well,” she says eventually, “with that being the case, I think that we could count this as a detention, and granted that Lydia doesn’t bring any more material of this nature into school we could leave the matter there - if you’re confident it can be handled at home?”

“I’m sure it can be, thank you.”

Mrs Alrdidge smiles. He suspects she’s as glad as he is to get that over with.

“Thank you for taking responsibility, Lydia,” she says, and the girl finally looks up. “You’ve been a good student so far, and I don’t say that lightly. I hope this incident will only be a blip on that record.”

Lydia nods, seemingly taken a little off-guard. “I- yeah. Thanks.”

“I’m a particular fan of your poetry.”

She smiles, somewhat shyly. Charles puts a proud arm around his daughter.

“I’m glad we could get this sorted,” he says. “Thank you for your time.”

They stand, shake hands, and Charles walks from the room with one arm around Lydia and the book under the other.

“Good cover, Dad,” she says, a little shakily, once the door has closed behind them. “The book messing with computers… ‘Cause, I mean, if I was the reason a bunch of people found out about the Netherworld I’d be in much worse trouble.”

Charles looks down at his daughter as they begin the walk back down to reception, giving her arm a little squeeze. “Lydia,” he says. “If I just wanted to cover up the… Well, not magic, but whatever it was, it would have been a lot more believable to accuse you of lying about the book being involved at all.”

The girl’s brow furrows as she looks back at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that while yes, explaining away all that stuff is important, I also wanted to make sure that it was seen as as much of an accident as it was. It was a reckless thing to do but it wouldn’t be fair to let your teacher think the result was intentional.”

“...Oh. I thought you were just hiding the book.”

He gives her arm another squeeze. “You’re more important than any book, Lydia, no matter how many secrets of the afterlife it may hold.”

He hands her back said book, and without needing to be prompted she begins pulling off the rubber bands holding it open.

“But on the subject of handbooks,” he says, “do you think there’s one for raising conduits?”

Lydia chuckles quietly, but it’s a little forced; it appears the joke didn’t land quite how he meant it. Charles internally cringes.

“Not that it’s any sort of burden,” he hastily clarifies. “I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

“Really?” she doesn’t seem convinced.

“Really. This… ghost business makes you happy, and that’s important to me.” He glances down at her. “And your mother would have thought it was fantastic, you seeing ghosts.”

She really smiles then, properly, and leans her head against him. He takes the chance to kiss the top of her head, as awkward as it is while they’re walking. For a few moments they’re both silent.

“...Does this mean I’m not getting grounded for inflicting horrors upon my English class?” Lydia eventually asks. Charles chuckles.

“Don’t push it. But, no. I think you’ve learnt your lesson, yes?”

She nods gravely. And that, in Charles’ opinion, is the matter dealt with.

“Now, what’s this poetry she was talking about?” he asks.

“You’re never gonna see it, Dad.”

“I thought so.”

Chapter Text

Charles knows the situation is more serious than its predecessors when the school receptionist on the other end of the phone asks if he can come in at his earliest convenience, rather than a teacher arranging a meeting at half past three. It’s not an invite he particularly wants to receive on any day, but at least he isn’t in the office on this one. And so, it’s only a matter of the time it takes to drive there before the same receptionist is giving him directions to the headteacher’s office.

He has to wonder, when he gets there, whether fifteen is too old for a student to be left to sit outside the head’s office like a child on the naughty step. Lydia has her eyes averted from him, fiddling with the pride pin on the spiderweb button-up shirt Delia bought her a few weeks ago; a peace offering, of sorts, in regard to the whole wearing yellow thing.

“Lydia.”

She winces, slowly shifting to grab at her skirt, still avoiding eye contact.

“Lydia, I-”

Whatever stern words Charles was planning die in his throat when he hears his daughter sniffle, sees her quickly wipe her eyes. He crouches down. Her face is flushed and tearstained. And though he’s been told, again, that Lydia’s at fault here, paternal instincts and his recent fear of pushing her away melt his anger away at the sight.

“Pumpkin?” he asks quietly. “What’s happened?”

She takes a shaky breath, gripping her skirt tighter, but before she can give him an answer the door she’s sitting beside opens and she shuts her eyes, like she’s steeling herself.

“Mr Deetz?” the man in the doorway - the school’s headmaster, Charles recognises - asks.

“Yes,” Charles confirms, climbing to his feet but resting a hand on Lydia’s shoulder.

“Mr Kendall,” the headmaster re-introduces himself, holding out his hand to shake, which Charles accepts. “Thank you for coming in.”

He steps aside, and Charles ushers Lydia to her feet and through the door.

“I’m sorry for asking you to come in on such short notice,” Mr Kendall says once they’re all sat down, “but there has been a rather serious incident involving your daughter.”

Lydia hasn’t raised her gaze.

“We’ve been trying to collect statements from other students,” the teacher continues, “but nobody seems entirely sure what happened. All we know for sure is that all accounts point to Lydia being in the centre of it.”

Charles nods, doing his best to hide a creeping sense of dread. He has a feeling this incident will follow the recent trend.

“So, I think we should start by asking Lydia for her view of the event.”

Lydia finally looks up, wide-eyed, but doesn’t seem to know where to focus. “I- I, uh-” She fidgets in her seat, scuffing her boot against the carpet.

“Did this happen in class?” Charles prompts gently.

She nods, looking down at her hands again.

“Okay, so how about you start at the start of the lesson?”

Lydia hesitates, squirming in her seat for a moment before finally speaking.

“It… It was a chemistry lesson. Practical. We were going to do something with how different factors affect rates of reaction, like… surface area and heat and stuff. But you’re meant to find someone to work with, right? So I kinda hung back - I never really know who to ask - and the teacher’s used to this by now so she said I could just work by myself, so I started… doing that…”

She trails off, her eyes flicking between different items on the desk in front of her.

“Did something happen while you were working?” Charles asks.

“I- yeah.”

“Did you make a mistake with the experiment?”

“No.”

“Was… Was it something someone else did?”

She hesitates, and then nods. Charles’s heart sinks a little. He’s spent a lot of time hoping that her fellow teenagers would have mercy on his strange daughter. Maybe she isn’t faring as well as he thought.

“Did they say something to you?”

Again, she takes a moment before nodding. Charles puts an arm around her shoulder, feeling steadily worse by the second.

“What did they say, Pumpkin?”

She draws her limbs in slightly, not looking him in the eye. Her face is getting steadily redder.

“It’s alright,” Charles says quietly. “You can tell me. I’m listening.”

After a little more squirming, she mumbles something unintelligible.

“What was that?”

“They… there’s, uh, there’s a few guys in my year who keep calling me a witch. Because of my general… everything.”

The look on her face, the discomfort, with her cringing in on herself in the chair, makes Charles feel ill. But before he can say a word, she continues.

“So while I was trying to do the stupid reaction thing they started talking about me doing spells and potions and stuff, and it was just- it was so stupid. They were doing the exact same thing as me! But I knew if I said that they’d just get worse, so I- I tried to ignore them. I swear, I tried. It was just… The last straw, I guess.”

“You retaliated?” the teacher asks.

Lydia pauses. Not in quite the same uncomfortable, squirmy way as before. She looks more like she’s thinking hard. But eventually she sighs.

“I can’t think of a good enough cover story. So, you won’t believe me,” she says to the teacher, who raises his eyebrows.

“But I will?” Charles clarifies. It seems that yes, this is following the recent trend to a tee. Lydia cringes again. “It- it was a last resort. I was just- I was standing there and the only thing I could think was I am at my goddamn fucking limit in this fucking chemistry lab.”

Charles has to stop himself from reflexively commenting on her language. Now doesn’t seem like the time.

“Lydia,” the teacher says, “whether you think we’ll believe you or not, can you tell us what you did?”

She answers in a small voice. “I just… gave them what they were asking for.”

Charles finds himself briefly questioning - not for the first time, admittedly - whether his daughter has taken up witchcraft. But as she continues talking, he quickly realises that it’s somehow worse than that.

“I… kinda summoned a demon.”

The office falls silent. Charles feels his stomach drop. In school? In a chemistry lab, no less?! But while he’s trying to hide panic, the teacher just seems disappointed.

“Lydia,” he sighs. “This will be easier for everyone once we know what happened. Blatant lies aren’t going to help anyone.”

Lydia cringes, fidgeting in her seat.

“Do you want to try again?”

“I…” She looks up at her dad - a clear help me signal. He knows he’s set a precedent for this sort of situation, and as unhappy as he is with her demon-summoning habits it’s one he intends to stick with. The fact remains that once again she has not lied.

But he has absolutely no clue how to convince her teacher of that.

Lydia is squirming in her seat again, looking up at her dad. And he looks down, sure he looks just as lost as she does. He glances towards the teacher, and then lowers his head slightly.

“Lydia, what did he do, exactly?” he asks quietly.

“Nothing- nothing extreme,” she says, in similarly hushed tones. “Just spooked them a little. I just…” she looks down. “I just wanted them to stop.”

Hearing that feels like a knife in the heart. Half of him wants to still be mad. The other is desperate to just wrap her up in a hug.

“I know, Pumpkin, and we’re definitely talking about that later, but when that kind of thing starts happening you’re supposed to go to a trusted adult.”

“Beej is a trusted adult.”

“Is he, though?” The idea stings a little, oddly. It’s just that he thought he was doing better at this. He thought that he was at least past the point where his daughter goes to a demon with her problems before him.

“He’s hundreds of years old, Dad,” Lydia points out. “You can’t really get much more adult than that.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“Excuse me, Mr Deetz? Lydia?”

They both look up. Charles readjusts himself in his chair, clearing his throat. Lydia stares intensely at a highlighter sitting on the desk.

“I think,” Charles says, “I think that what Lydia meant to say is that she pretended to do some sort of summoning, in order to… intimidate her classmates?” He’s rapidly trying to throw together a cover story. Maybe she faked a summoning, and some chemical got knocked over along the way, and that was enough to cause… whatever sort of incident that Beetlejuice cooked up? Or an accidental reaction caused hallucinogenic fumes? Would that get Lydia in too much trouble? No more than sicking a demon on students should, surely?

“Lydia,” Mr Kendal says, as Charles falls deeper into his brainstorming. “What exactly did you say to your classmates?”

She mumbles something back, too quiet to be audible.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that?”

She mumbles again, a little louder, but Charles still only understands what she’s saying because he recognises the name. His eyes widen. The teacher is none the wiser.

“Lydia, could you please speak up?” Mr Kendall asks, at the same time as Charles’ “Lydia, no-”

“Beetlejuice. Three times, unbroken.”

Charles shuts his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose as the door bursts open behind them.

“Excuse me?” the headteacher says, clearly doing his best to remain calm. “This is a private meeting, and- who are you, exactly?!”

Beetlejuice pays him no mind, preferring to grab the back of Lydia’s chair and shake it, obnoxious as ever. “Ooh, someone’s in trouble!”

Lydia elbows him in the gut. Charles sighs.

“Why did you feel the need to bring him into this? Again?”

“I- I don’t know. Proof, I guess?”

“Damn, Lyds,” Beetlejuice says, tipping the chair back and leaning over her. “Is summoning me still your only solution to anything?”

“Shuttup,” Lydia snaps.

“Mr Deetz, do you know this man?” Mr Kendal cuts in. Charles sighs.

“Yes. This is Lawrence, he’s…” for a moment, he tries to think of a rational explanation. He’s an estranged uncle? A family friend? A very enthusiastic youth club leader?

“...He’s the demon Lydia summoned in Chemistry class. Unfortunately.”

“Oh, is that what this is about?” He pulls up a chair that definitely wasn’t on Lydia’s other side a moment ago, flopping down beside her. “Lay it on us, then. How much detention are we gonna be dodging?”

The teacher hesitates for a moment, evidently struggling to keep up. “...Right. Okay, maybe you can help us iron out what happened here. But first, can we all drop this silly notion that there was demonic activity involved?”

“Maybe you need to drop the notion that this scarecrow-looking brat isn’t literally always doing demonic activities,” Beetlejuice responds.

“Excuse-”

“For example.” He cracks his knuckles, and with a flick of the wrist sends Lydia rocketing up to maybe a foot below the ceiling.

Now, when the Maitlands levitate Lydia, it’s gentle. Supportive. Like a ghostly hug. Beetlejuice, on the other hand, prefers to pluck her off the ground by the scruff of the neck like she’s a feral kitten. This tends to annoy Charles far more than it does her.

“At least support her properly,” he sighs, as the headteacher stares open-mouthed at his floating pupil. “You’re going to choke her, and you’ve already ripped the hood off two jackets with this.”

“Not my fault,” the demon shrugs. “If people are going to put handles on the back of clothes they should make ‘em stronger. Besides, Lyds likes it.”

He points with his thumb towards the girl, who is currently trying to kick him in the head.

“Oi!” she protests, struggling in midair, “I like this shirt!”

“It won’t rip if you stop squirming!”

Still staring, eyes bulging, the headteacher slowly rises to his feet. He moves around the desk, crouches slightly, and waves his hand under Lydia’s dangling feet. He carefully moves her chair to the side, steps up onto it, and does the same over her head, squinting into the air.

“Lydia…?”

She shrugs. “I did try to tell you.”

He stumbles back to the floor with shaking legs, and as soon as he’s off the chair Beetlejuice plops her down into it.

“So, is that demonic enough for you?” Beetlejuice asks, grinning with way too many teeth. “Or should I do you as well?”

He leans towards the teacher, and he flinches back. Charles recognises that expression - the teacher can feel it now. There’s a sort of energy around Beetlejuice, a potent one.

“No- no, that’s not necessary.” He scurries back to his side of the desk, sitting down and trying to compose himself. “I, uh… I apologise for accusing you of lying regarding the demonic aspect of all this, Lydia.”

She shrugs. “Not the first time.”

“...Yes. But, now we’re all on the same page, um, I suppose the question is whether you think this is appropriate classroom behaviour.”

He’s nervously smoothing down his hair as he speaks - trying to put the situation back in terms he understands, Charles recognises. Lydia doesn’t meet his eyes, fidgeting with her skirt again.

“Lydia-”

“There’s no rule against summoning demons,” she protests, with the tone of someone who’s checked.

“No, not explicitly, but being respectful of your peers’ learning environment is a rule, isn’t it?”

“...Yeah,” she grumbles, scuffing her boot against the carpet.

“Do you think summoning a demon is conducive to a respected learning environment?”

After a moment, Beetlejuice raises his hand to answer the question. Charles reaches over Lydia’s head to pull it back down.

“Well, Lydia?” Mr Kendal continues.

“They disrespected it first.”

“And was this a proportional response?”

“It was a last stand.”

She’s starting to sound more angry than worried, picking at her sleeves. Mr Kendal sighs.

“You know what you’re supposed to do in this situation, don’t you?”

He only receives a rather sarcastic nod, but continues on.

“You’re supposed to tell a teacher, or a member of the pastoral team. Is that something you tried?”

“Everyone knows you don’t tell on those kinda people. It’s literally just giving them something else to make fun of. And anyway, it… it should have been obvious by now.”

Charles gently rubs her arm. The ill feeling is returning.

“It’s pretty much every day. It’s happened in pretty much every class. They’re loud. And they’ve never got called out on it. Not properly. So don’t act like it’s my fault for not tattling when it’s obvious nobody cares.”

Beetlejuice pats her on the head, giving the teacher a smile that’s only thinly hiding his anger. “Damn, teach. Scathing.”

Charles puts a hand on her shoulder again. The half of him that wants to be mad is waving a white flag. “How long has this been happening, Pumpkin?”

Lydia shrugs. “The whole time, kinda? Got worse after the book thing…”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t wanna freak you out again.”

His heart sinks. It seems stupid, now he thinks about it, to have thought she would suddenly know how to talk to him. “Lydia, I’m your father. It’s my job to worry about you from time to time.”

She leans against him. Charles settles an arm around her shoulders.

“I can assure you, this situation will be looked into,” the teacher once again cuts back in. “But the fact remains that Lydia-”

“What I’ve learnt about raising a young medium,” Charles interrupts, “is to consider the why of the demon summonings. Often it’s that she didn’t feel she could talk to me, and I’m working on that. But the fact remains my daughter has been put in a position where she feels she needs the occult for self-defence, that’s my priority at the moment. Frankly, I think it would be unfair to address what she did before it’s clear what’s lead to it.”

Charles is quite aware that he probably should be considering some sort of consequence for said occult defence, but it’s hard to think past the fact that his little girl is hurting, again. Emily isn’t here to be her mama bear, he has to step up to the plate. But… does that make him the mother bear now? He supposes there must be a male equivalent. A father bear. His brain helpfully decides to illustrate this concept with a cartoon bear wearing a little tie.

“Oi. Chuck.” Beetlejuice snaps his fingers in front of Charles’ face. “You get stuck in an extended metaphor there?”

“I- um-”

“What we’re saying,” Beetlejuice continues, leaning on the headmaster’s desk, “is that I don’t just fuck with kids for no reason. Your guys let ‘em fuck with Lyds first.”

“She’s a vulnerable teengager under your care,” Charles adds, “she shouldn’t have been put in this position.”

“It’s your fuckup, really.”

Lydia, sensing the direction this conversation is going in, contributes a suitably sad little sniffle.

“I think-”

“I think I’m going to take my daughter home now. I’m sure you understand. Come on, Lydia.”

They stand, his arm still around her shoulders, and turn towards the door. Charles sees, out of the corner of his eye, Beetlejuice pointing two fingers towards his eyes and then the teacher.

“Lawrence, let’s go.”

“Nah, I’m good. Go get the kid some ice cream or something, I’m gonna make sure this guy sorts out his shit.”

“...Right. I assume there’s no point telling you not to terrorise any more children?”

“Not in the slightest.”

Knowing the utter futility of arguing with the demon, Charles opts to swiftly usher Lydia out. The door clicks closed, and the two of them are stood alone in the school corridor. Charles runs his free hand through his hair.

“Right. Lydia, can you show me the way out?”

She nods, and they set off back towards the car park.

“You’re not mad?” Lydia asks after a few moments of silence. Charles sighs.

“Not this time. But I want your word that you will never do that again.”

She nods vigorously.

“Thank you. And in return, I’ll do my absolute best to make sure you never feel like you have to, okay?”

Another nod.

“Now, we’re going to have to talk about what’s been going on, but that doesn’t have to be today. Let’s just go home and watch some TV, yeah?”

“And eat ice cream?”

He sighs, yet again. “As much as I hate to admit Beetlejuice had a good idea, yes. That sounds good.”

“Don’t let him hear that, he’ll start asking you to add him to my co-parenting plan again.”

“Good Lord.”

They finally get out of the building and find their way to the car. Charles fastens his seatbelt, checks his mirrors, and reaches out to put a hand on Lydia’s shoulder yet again.

“I know I’m not always the best at showing it, but I love you far more than a boring old real estate man could ever hope to describe. Everything about you.”

“Even when I invoke demonic rage instead of talking about things?”

“Well, you’ve done that two or three times now, and I still do.”

“...True.” She reaches up to pat the hand on her shoulder. “Love you too, Dad.”