My journey started just as it had ended.
On the corner or Springsberry and Old Mill Road.
I laid in the dirt just a few feet from where I had met my tragic end. I laid there as the headlights came and went, minutes maybe hours passed by.
I was determined to haunt this spot as long as I could. Nothing scared me anymore.
Logic : Oh, crap now she is a Specter
A fresh rain fell from the sky and still I lay in the soft dirt turned mud, I was truly alone as I had been when I locked myself in the house.
My happy family now seemed a lie.
I reached towards the sky and traced out Orion in the stars.
“Do you see it, Addison? Are you watching the same sky as me…”
LiLe : No seriously this name is growing on me and Clara and Addison sound like a cute couple. I mean not as cute as Victor and Clara but whatever.
I finished the sentence in a flow of tears and traced the constellation again, it was far away but I had no doubt it was the same sky I had gazed at all this time.
I was blinded by a pair of headlights. This was a popular place to stargaze I guess I wouldn’t be alone after all.
“Dude”, I heard the newcomers talking
“Holy shit”, someone else said
I knew that voice.
She heard this guys voice on the night she died.
“Holy fucking shit, is she alive ?”
“You can see me”, a trickle of blood came out my mouth as I spoke
“I think so, call 911, call 911”
I managed to turn my head in the lights I could see my arm was bloody and bruised. I turned my head and saw a flashing red light a few feet away.
“. ..Date . . .it ?”, I managed.
“uh…uh… June 25th”, the man said
Like I said my journey started where it had ended
It’s the day she died.
Chapter 13
I spent two weeks in Rochester Medical Center ICU, I was chastised by everyone about not wearing a seat belt. I had apparently gone through the windshield and landed in the field.
On the inside I was incoherent and inconsolable. I refused to believe , these past few months, had all been a dream that sustained me in that field till I was found
OMG, that would have been a great ending.
I smiled and accepted Peter’s kiss a bit more light-hearted than usual as I woke up in the hospital.
“I was worried”, he said, “I thought we’d lost you”
“Me too”, I said
He reached to kiss me again when my father who hadn’t left my side began to cough. It made me laugh. I loved his cough.
Random
“Clara, where is your promise ring ?”, my father asked. *Glares at Peter*
Cause Daddy is keeping tabs.
I looked down at my empty ring finger, my heart skipped a beat.
“It—must have come off in the accident.”
I moved back in with my parents while I healed, when they were at work I scoured our family home looking for a sign of my grandparents sordid past. For now I only had one lead to go on.
I borrowed my parent’s Lexus and drove 4 hours just in time for morning classes at Yale University. Summer classes were in session and I went to the academic buildings and looked though the class roster.
OMG SH, she is in New Haven, CT. Now I only did this because I wanted Emile to be in a state where gay marriage was legal AND he was a professor so I HAD to put him at Yale.
I skimmed it till I came down to the name I was looking for.
I got instructions and headed to the lecture hall, the class was almost over and I sat in the back as the same curly haired man happily lectured about the use of fiction to degenerate and produce history. I stayed in the back when class let out. I had to know.
“Excuse me”, I said, “Dr. Emile.”
He looked up from his podium like I was any other student.
“Don’t you go calling me Doctor, Clara.”
“Emile !”
I nearly attacked him with a hug
“Why is this happening ?”, I asked, “I thought it was some type of wonderful dream . . .”
“Let me show you something”
Here is comes. The explanation. I have a love/hate relationship with this plotline. It worked but sometimes I wonder if there was another way to explain the whole reincarnation bit. I don’t hate it but stil. . .
He pulled a book out of his bag
“This is an old law, something I have been considering”, he said reading from a large book, “Should a man be sentenced to hang by pain of death, may be saved by a virtuous woman whom agrees to save him."
This was the quote the inspired the entire second half of the story.
“I don’t understand”
“Clara, you sacrificed yourself for all of us. In doing so you gave us a second chance. Saved us, if you will.”, he smirked, “they didn’t sacrifice virgins for nothing”
Logic : Hey LiLe is that book Emile is reading from called Deux ex Machina ?
“This is why Victor wanted me, he wanted a second chance but that means . . .”
“Let me show you something ,Clara.”
I followed him to his car, he drove to New York and pulled up by a elementary school. The bell began to ring and children flooded the tiny playground. One little girl with butterfly hair clips stuck out to me. I reached for the door handle but Emile stopped me.
“She might not remember you, she was young”
I watched as Kayla ran to a police officer and hugged and kiss him. I held my hand to the glass as she got in the car with her father.
“Victor could have used her”, I told him
“He didn’t know. . . children hardly understand the concept of sacrifice.”
Once again we continued our car trip to a retirement home upstate. We signed in as guest and seated in a decorated wheel chair I saw Ms. Ginger. A teenage girl was with her doing her nails and make-up.
She looked older and although we didn’t get any closer that day she looked up and winked at me.
Hm, I wish I had written Ms. Ginger into the other parts.
I sat in silence as Emile began to take a familiar route, there was only one other place we could be going. I had been there so many times in the past that the history never hit me till now.
Chautauqua, NY what had once been a small farming and fishing community turned into a low-key resort with lakeside property, half of which the DeLune family owned.
You know, since we bought the land from those Fierro’s after they died. To bad they didn’t have like an heir or son or something cause then all the land and money would totally be his.
Wait.
Mr. F was adopted so his last name isn’t really Fierro.
We pulled up to Chautauqua County Dock’s. The smell of salt and water was thick in the air. We rented a motorboat and I could feel my stomach turning as we made it across the lake.
I enjoyed the sea breeze against my healing skin as Emile steered, in the distance beyond the water there was a bay, with a French Manor that appeared to float in the murky sea.
The Old Fierro Farm
Which is magically never across a lake after this. Or maybe there is a bridge of something. I don’t know
+2+
I helped Emile dock the boat and jumped out almost falling into the water. I ran across the moist courtyard past plaque in front of the house.
I knocked on dense wood doors. They were heavy but I kept knocking.
“Mr. Fierro”, I called. The doors didn’t budge and everything was still and silent. I knocked louder but still nothing.
Mr. F POV: No, I should let her forget about me. I would just complicate her life and her grandfather would recognize me. Plus she’s engaged to a prince so I’ll just ignore her. It’s better this way.
I saw Emile gesturing me to come around back, there was a lively garden and in the center a perfect white marble slate
Addison Micajah Fierro
February 6th 1930 - March 15th 1955
Nephew + Friend
“No”, I picked up a rock and threw it at the house, “Addison, can you hear me
?”
Clara : Why do I think he is dead ?
LiLe : because we want the audience to think he is dead.
Clara : have you ever thought of being straightforward and not trying to throw people off. It might make things less complicated.
LiLe : You know I do the exact opposite of that.
I tossed another rock when Emile stopped me.
“It didn’t matter”, I realized, “They still killed him . . . and got away with it. He loved you .", I yelled to my Grandmother, “He loved you till the very end . . .and you still killed him.”
Emile and I walked back to the plaque out front.
“Mister & Miss. Fierro set away reward money for their nephew’s murderer. After 40 years Miss. Fierro’s dying wish was to build a monument to the beauty she saw inside her nephew over the old Fierro farm. The garden is where the old barn used to stand and the quarry is just beyond there”
Emile took a bouquet of roses from the back seat of his car and handed a few to me and we headed back to the grave.
“Nothing but the best for you, old friend”, he placed them on the grave
I kissed one of the roses and placed it on top of his.
Aww, a kiss from a rose that’s a Seal song. How did I not use it.
Emile slid an arm around my waist and we walked back to the car. I let him drive while I cried all the way home.
Home
At Last.
Chapter 14
Canon in D began to filter through Oheka Chapel.
From the window I could almost make out the cemetery just beyond the footbridge, where Grandma Lucie was buried.
The two families gathered in the bride’s room listened with downcast eyes as the premiere DeLune Academy Orchestra continued to play in the next room, just for me on my wedding day.
Peter held my hand firmly and stood with me like I knew he always would.
“But Clara, you look so beautiful in your grandmother’s jewels and your wedding gown”, mother said, her Italian accent coming across as she smoothed the large white dress, “And that Morrati Heirloom”
She pointed to the jewels that adorned my head.
It’s a TIARA
“I know, Mother”
“Clara, I know what this is about”, started Clarice
“No you don’t”, I started to cry
“Peter—“started his mother in English so I would hear, “What is this happening?”
But Clara speaks Italian so . . .
“Clara”, interrupted my father, “Today is your wedding day, stop with this nonsense. I know you’re upset because Grandmother isn’t here—“
Oh, she’s there alright
“I’m sorry, I just can’t.””, I turned towards Peter, “I’m sorry Peter”
“It’s fine, Go”, he said
We embraced quickly and before anyone could stop me, for the first time I ran away.
+2+
I opened the door to the church and kicking off my dreadful heels I ran, I ran along the soft earth across the foot bridge, the hideous crystal studded roses in my bouquet fell in petals along the bridge.
Hmm, Clara doesn’t wear shoes a lot. Also crystal studded roses are tacky, right ?
I kept running toward the cemetery. Grandma Lucie’s grave was the largest it was white marble and just as lovely as she was. I put the remaining flowers on it. She would like them
“Pretty little things”, I said
I kneeled soiling my white dress, everything about my family I had believed in had been crushed in one night, that didn’t even seem real.
I wondered then and there that if I could wait 50 years for anyone.
The sky around me darken and I looked up to see I was shaded by an umbrella, next to me stood a pair of shiny black shoes. I looked past clean pinstripe slacks, white shirt and dark vest.
“Oh, God”
His pallid complextion frightened me in the eerie setting.
“I’m seeing things.”
Fancy meeting you here.
I got up from my knees and touched him, it was too real.
“You look different”, I said
“As do you”
I pondered this for a while, his skin was a white and clear as I remembered and even against my own hand there was something strange and different that I had not gotten used to.
“You’re alive”, I said, “We’re alive.”
He nodded
“I am sure Sovereign Prince Peter Morrati of Genoa is waiting for you.”
“No”, I protested
“Believe me, I have read enough books to now the princess always married the prince, Ms.—Princess.”
“Yes, well you’re forgetting I’m not princess” I took off the tiara.
He turns toward his beloved Lucie’s grave, and places a bouquet of familiar Juliet roses on her grave and reaches for the marble, but doesn’t touch it.
“Here is the deepest secret no one knows. Here is the root of the root... and the bud of the bud... and the sky of the sky of a tree called life... which grows higher than the soul can hope... or mind can hide. It is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart. I carry your heart. I carry it in my heart.”
So he’s looking at Lucie’s grave but he is talking to Clara
“She does not deserve you.” I said, “You heard me at the door didn’t you ? And you didn’t open. You really will love her to the very end.”
I turned away when he held my hand and unbuttoned two buttons on his shirt and pressed my hand flat against his bare skin.
He held my hand firmly.
Her hand is on his heartbeat
“I carry your heart. I carry it in my heart, Ms. DeLune”
I stepped on my toes, and touched my nose against his.
A wave of unwanted fear crept over me as an unsettling wind blew through my dress.
“Ms. DeLune. . .”
“Yes, Mr. Fierro”, I looked away from the grave.
“Kiss me”
“Yes, Sir”
Epilogue
The Old Fierro Manor is isolated, for the most part, from the rest of the world.
All I know is that I did, have and will die. Whether Litany Lane was some beautiful purgatory I doubt I will ever know.
While rose gardens held true beauty, beauty I thought I could not find anywhere else, until I started looking.
In short
Haunted as we are, I hope the ghost of my past will allow some form of happily ever after
THE END !!!
Muse : Pssst. Hey LiLe
LiLe : *incoherent and sleepy*
Muse : Hey, so quick question. If Roger is still alive won’t he notice his granddaughter dating a man he killed 50 years ago ?
LiLe : *tired*
Muse : What about Clara’s family I mean aren’t they mad at her for not marrying Peter ?
LiLe : Am I drunk ?
Muse : And I mean really if Lucie is a Spectre will she really be okay that the ONE thing she tried to avoid is happening. She’s getting kicked to the curve for a younger , self-less, nicer model.
LiLe : It happens. and why are you spelling Specter like that ?
Muse: What about Victor I mean what happened to him ? Is he a human too ? Did he become a Spectre ? Isn’t that the ONE thing he didn’t want ?
LiLe : *not caring*
Muse : Also is Roger going to get away with murdering Mr. F ? Haven’t you seen Cold Case ? He can still go to jail. Isn’t REVENGE the ONE thing Mr. F wanted. He can do that now.
LiLe : Fine, I’ll do some short stories
August
Muse : Wow, these are great ! But don’t you kind of want to do one with babies ever after.
LiLe : I’ll work on it for August
Muse : But, the fans missed out on a lot of sexytimes. I mean they only kiss ONCE.
LiLe : NO
Muse : . . . you could come up with a bait and switch endings, Red Herring and pull at people’s heartstrings while confusing the F out of them and throw structure out the window. THINK OF ALL THE CHEKOVS. Plus you could physically mutilate like all your main characters.
LiLe : Well . . .
Muse : You can use the word Corporeal more
LiLe : Sold
HOUSE OF FIERRO
*Spoiler I don’t get to use the corporeal a lot. Actually never