She was lost, and had no desire to do anything but sit here.
Chapter 8
Days later Claire stood outside the freshly repaired wrought-iron gate that enclosed the crypt she’d always taken care of. She lifted a hand and ran her fingers over the smooth surface.
“It’s a nice new one. We went ahead and replaced the whole fence. Maybe it’ll keep the damn kids out of it now. They always want to paint symbols on the walls and leave offerings for the Voodoo Queen buried inside.”
“What?” Claire asked the caretaker, Mr. Deeks. He was the same cemetery employee that had given her and her mother permission to restore the crypt when she was a child. He was much older now, and a whole lot rounder, but he still made his rounds on his little golf cart, checking all the crypts each day after all the tourists left. He’d seen Claire here many times since she was a girl. She’d always tried to keep the crypt nice, so even after she’d grown up, and her mom had stopped bringing her, he’d still given her access.
“Don’t tell me you don’t know? All these years and you never knew the legend of the Voodoo Queen, Maman ‘Vangeline?”
She ran her fingers over the gate again, searching in vain for her ghost, her Samuel, to be looking back at her. “Well, yes, a little, but no more than the average person. Is there anyone else in there with her?”
“Rumor is that when they opened the crypt in the 1940’s to put the last occupant inside, they found the skeleton of a man off in the corner to one side. I’m sure he was there for a long, long time, though. The way we bury our dead down here in communal family crypts, it’s not unusual to have several sets of remains in a crypt at any one time. Some say he was the son of the Voodoo Queen that went missing back in the 1800’s. Others say he was the secret lover of the last soul laid to rest here, and he was murdered for loving a nun.”
“A nun?” Claire asked, surprised.
“Yep. See? Right here, Clarice LeChassaise Dupont. Sister of the Ursuline Convent. It was her they were laying to rest when they found the man’s skeleton.”
“What did they do with his remains?”
He shrugged. “Left them there. He was already interred, so they just left him there.” He waddled back over to his golf cart. “You gonna be long? I was thinking to get home a little early today. Easter, you know. The grand-younguns going to be hunting for eggs.”
“Just a little while longer. If you don’t mind.”
“Suit yourself. I’ll be around for about an hour more.”
“Thank you, Mr. Deeks.”
Claire waited quietly until Mr. Deeks was out of earshot. As soon as she was alone again, she called out to her ghost. “Samuel? Are you here?”
She got no reply.
“Samuel!”
There was still no reply.
“If you can hear me, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want you to lose your soul.”
When she still got no reply, she began to cry silently and spoke to him anyway as though he was there. Her voice quivered as she forced the words from her throat. “I miss you. I know it was usually me talking, and you just listening, but I miss you so much.”
She reached into her purse, pulling out the sticky pad she always carried and a pen. She quickly wrote a note, then rolled it up and tossed it inside the gate, up against the side of the white marble crypt. She closed her eyes and sent up a quick prayer. When she was done she just stood there, her head down, holding onto the gate.
“I’m not sure who he was, Maman. But I love him. He saved me.” Claire’s voice cracked, and she paused to swallow a few times before continuing. “I’ve never asked for anything in all the years I’ve cared for your resting place. But now I do. If you do grant wishes, and I’m really hoping you do, please, make sure he’s at peace. Make sure he’s not wandering somewhere between this world and the next, unable to rest.”
Claire’s hair lifted on a breeze. Then again. She raised her head and startled when she found a beautiful Mulatto woman standing before her, her image wavering in the sunshine. She was striking in her presence, very proud in her stance, and she had the same luminescent green eyes Samuel did. She was laughing.
Claire was stunned and simply