be together. Time took you from me, but then your heart brought you back to me as a young girl. And it brought you back again when you needed me. I’ve always been there for you. Watching, waiting, just for a chance to see you smile.”
“Why didn’t you ever speak to me before?”
“I couldn’t leave my prison without losing my soul. It was the penalty for leaving my resting place.”
A panicked look crossed Claire’s face. “But you left it! You can’t give up your soul for me!
Samuel smiled. “I’d give up everything for you. And have, more than once,” he said sincerely, without resentment of any type. “You’re safe now, Claire. It was worth it, a thousand times over. It was worth it.”
“No! Can’t you just hurry back? Go back to the cemetery before anyone realizes you’re gone. Please!” she rushed forward, reaching out for the man, the ghost she’d grown to love over the years. She’d always been drawn to him in one form or another all her life. “I don’t want you to be lost. Please, just go back to the crypt before it’s too late!”
When her hands passed through him, she sobbed. “No! This is all my fault!”
“It’s alright. You’re safe now,” he said, his image becoming more translucent.
Claire’s voice shook when she spoke again. “Please don’t go,” she begged. “I’ve only just found you.”
“Remember me, Claire. As long as you remember me, a part of me will always be here. Remember me,” he said, as he faded away, first into a mist, then into nothing at all.
“No!” she screamed, falling to her knees and crying, reaching out to the space he was no longer standing in.
~~~~~
Claire lay on the floor, crying for hours. When she finally cried herself out, she got to her knees, took Preston’s phone out of his pocket and dialed the police.
She didn’t bother to clean or adjust anything at all and left Preston’s body lying just where it had fallen. She was sitting in a rocking chair, staring off into nothingness when a knock on the door got her attention. Claire rose from her chair and opened the door.
“Ma’am? We got a report of a murder,” an NOPD officer said, his eyes taking in her bruises, cuts and tears.
“Yes, sir. He’s over there,” she said on a sob, moving aside for the policeman to enter the apartment.
“Do you know who did it, ma’am?” the second officer asked as the first went to Preston’s body and felt for a pulse.
“No, sir. I came home from a walk. I could hear fighting from outside before I ever opened the door. When I did, a man was strangling my boyfriend. I tried to make him stop, but…” she gestured at her face with the bruises and split lip. “I don’t know how long I lay on the floor, but when I woke up, Preston was gone. I found his phone and called ya’ll,” she said, ending on a fresh supply of tears and sobbing.
“It’s alright, ma’am. We’ll just need you to give us a description, then make a formal statement, but first we’ll take you to the hospital and get you checked out.”
Clarie nodded, and watched several more people pass her and the officer speaking to her, and go right into her apartment. She watched as they lifted Preston’s body onto a stretcher, covered it with a sheet, and rolled it away. She allowed herself to be guided to another ambulance where the paramedics checked her out, then drove her to the hospital. And the next day when she was picked up from the hospital and taken to the police station to give her statement, she gave the description of her ghost. There was no way he’d ever be arrested for murdering Preston, so there was no harm in giving his description.
A few hours later an officer dropped her off at her apartment and she wandered numbly into the living room. She allowed herself to collapse into the rocking chair, and she let the tears come again. She wasn’t mourning Preston. She didn’t care about Preston, he’d proven one too many times what kind of man he was. She was mourning her ghost. He’d been a part of her life since she was a child, and now he was gone, because he’d sacrificed himself for her. Claire reached for the old blanket draped over the arm of the chair and cuddled into it. She wanted to go to her ghost, but he wasn’t there anymore.