Only Fools Walk Free

by Sandra R Neeley

  Samuel stood at the gate, resting his hands against the inside of the gate, careful not to extend a finger beyond its boundaries. He smiled at her just like he used to when he’d see her hurrying toward him for one of their clandestine meetings.

  “Samuel! I can see you!” she shouted, breaking into a run as her heart leapt with joy.

  ‘Vangeline looked back at her, then at Samuel. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes!” she cried. “He’s there, right there! I can see his outline in the mists. Oh, Samuel, I can see you! You are just as I remember — so beautiful!”

  She held her arm out, over the threshold and gasped when she felt the warmth of his touch on her wrist. “I can feel you! I always wondered if it was my imagination, but it’s not. I can see the outline of your hand on my wrist and feel the warmth!”

  Clarice climbed up on the base of the gate and leaned over toward him, puckering her lips for him to kiss.

  Samuel clasped her beautiful face in his hands and pressed his lips to hers.

  Clarice closed her eyes as the warmth and love he felt for her enveloped her. “I love you,” she whispered.

  “I love you, my Clarice. So much,” he said.

  “He says he loves you, too,” ‘Vangeline told Clarice.

  “I’ve brought lunch, and a book of poetry. Won’t you share my lunch?” Clarice asked ‘Vangeline.

  “Thank you, Clarice, but no. I only came by for a brief visit. I’ve much to do today.”

  “If you’re sure,” Clarice said, setting her picnic basket on the cement walkway beside the crypt.

  “I am sure. You stay here and enjoy your time with Samuel,” ‘Vangeline said, pausing to glance over at Samuel.

  Clarice knew that Samuel was speaking to ‘Vangeline. She could see his lips moving, outlined by the mists the way they were, she just couldn’t hear his voice.

  “He says you should read him some of your poetry book. He loves to hear your voice. And tell him of your days since you were here last,” ‘Vangeline said.

  “I will do both,” Clarice said happily, gazing at her husband. “I still can’t believe I can actually see him today!” she said happily.

  ‘Vangeline smiled sadly for Clarice. “He is happy that you can see him, too.” ‘Vangeline put her bonnet back on her head and tied the ribbons beneath her chin, then she slipped her gloves back on. “I’ll be on my way now. You take care, Clarice,” she said hugging the girl.

  “I will, ‘Vangeline.”

  ‘Vangeline kissed her gloved fingertips then slipped them through the gate, where Samuel pressed his cheek to her fingertips. “I love you, Samuel. I shall return soon.”

  Clarice watched as ‘Vangeline made her way out of the cemetery. She didn’t look back at the young star-crossed couple, she just kept to her path and quickly disappeared from view.

  Clarice turned back to Samuel, still visible if she moved just so to get the full effect of his person moving through the mists. “Shall I read?” she asked.

  Samuel gave her a brilliant smile and nodded his head dramatically so she’d see him respond.

  Clarice settled in front of the crypt, mindless of the mists and fogs dampening the walkway, and by default, her skirt. She opened her book of poetry, and began to read to Samuel. They passed a lovely afternoon, chatting, reading, and just reveling in being near one another.

  After that day, Clarice always made a special effort to visit Samuel each time there was heavy fog or mists in the area. And each time she was treated to the vision of her love, waiting for her, a smile on his lips. Years passed this way, but Clarice never stopped coming to spend time with Samuel.

  Then came the day Clarice arrived to find ‘Vangeline standing beside the crypt, quietly weeping. Her heart thudded in her chest and she ran to ‘Vangeline, shouting out her concern before she was even close enough to speak to her. “What’s wrong? Is he gone?”

  ‘Vangeline looked up to see Clarice running toward her down the path that led to the crypt Samuel had been bound to. “No. He’s not gone,” she said, lifting her hands palm up, her face filled with desperation. “But I’ve tried everything. I cannot release him,” ‘Vangeline said, weeping quietly. “I can’t find a way to free him. I’ve consulted everyone I know, offered rewards that I cannot even pay to anyone that can help me free my son. And I’ve had no one even come forth with a suggestion. I don’t know what to do next, but I refuse to give up!” she finished up on a cough so forcefully that she had to hold onto the gate to keep herself upright.

  “It’s alright, Maman. It is what it is, and at least I can see you both, hear your voices. I’m not alone,” Samuel said, trying to comfort his mother.

  “It is not alright, Samuel. I may not always be here. What will happen to you then? I need to find a way to release you from your bargain.” ‘Vangeline was wracked with a soul-shaking cough again. “There is always a way out, we just have to find it!” she insisted.

  “Maman, you should not be here. Please, go home and take care of yourself. That cough sounds bad, Maman. I will still be here when you are better,” Samuel urged.

  “What if I don’t make it back, Samuel. I need to free you soon,” ‘Vangeline lamented.

  “’Vangeline, you are not well,” Clarice said quietly. She’d been watching ‘Vangeline speaking to Samuel. She couldn’t hear Samuel’s side, but she could guess the meaning of what he’d said from her responses. “You should go home and take care of yourself so that you will be able to free him as soon as we find the secret to releasing him.

  “I know you are right, but I don’t want to leave here. What if…” ‘Vangeline said.

  “You are so strong, ‘Vangeline. You can cure yourself. Take the time to rest and cure your cough. I’ll be here with Samuel every day, so you won’t have to worry about it. You take the time you need and we’ll find a way to release him when you are healthy again,” Clarice encouraged.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” ‘Vangeline said. She reached through the rungs of the gate, extending her arms so that Samuel could touch her and she him. “I love you, Samuel. I will find a way.”

  “I know, Maman. Go rest. Be well, then, I will see you again.”

  ~~~~~

  Clarice kept her promise to visit Samuel every day for the first week or so, then gradually, he realized it had been a while since she’d been to see him. He’d learned how to count the days as they passed, though they no longer affected him one way or another, so it was easy for him to know if Clarice missed a day.

  He was becoming worried. Neither Clarice nor his mother had come to see him in weeks. He paced his prison. He shouted his frustration. He stood on top of the crypt and screamed their names to the sky, but no one saw him, and no one heard him.

  Then, finally, one day a crew of several men arrived. They unlocked the gate around his crypt, opened the sealed inner sanctum of the crypt and removed Clarice's father’s remains from it. Then they sealed it again. He was confused, wondering what had caused the man’s remains to be removed from his own crypt. He was glad the man’s body was gone, but left in a state of wondering.

  Samuel spent much of that day confused and apprehensive. He knew something had changed, something was wrong. Later that afternoon, he saw a familiar figure making her way down the path to him. “Clarice!” he called out, jumping up from the ground where he leaned against the side of the crypt.

  He watched her walking toward him, almost as though she didn’t want to arrive at his crypt. Her anxious behavior only made him more concerned. “Clarice,” he said softly. “Whatever it is, please, just hurry and tell me,” he begged.

  But of course Clarice couldn’t hear him. She walked slowly, gathering her thoughts about her, hating the pain she was about to cause him. Bolstering her courage, she lifted her head the last few feet of the walk, and approached the gate that kept him in. “Are you here, my Samuel?” she asked softly.

  She extended her hand through the gate and waited. When he stroked the skin of her arm, she smi
led at the very slight, almost non-existent tingles she thought she felt. “There you are,” she whispered. Then her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry I’ve been away for so long, but it couldn’t be helped.”

  She felt him stroke her arm again and smiled sadly. “I’m so sorry, Samuel, but I have some very sad news. I’ve been caring for your mother. She cried out for you, and I was the only one who could soothe her. She was very ill, Samuel,” she said, pausing to swipe at her tears with her fingertips. Clarice took a deep breath and sniffled. “She passed last night. She had tuberculosis, Samuel. There was nothing to be done. Not her own medications, nor the doctor’s made any difference.”

  Samuel cried out, letting go of Clarice’s arm to fall upon the ground.

  “I’m so sorry, Samuel. I tried to take care of her the best I could. I tried so hard. But nothing made her better.”

  Clarice let her arm drop knowing that he no longer touched her. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. She sat down and leaned against the gate, resting the side of her face against one of the bars of the wrought iron fence, gazing into the small plot of ground that made up her family’s crypt. While she knew he was there, unless it was misty or foggy, she couldn’t see him. And she’d never be able to talk to him again now that Maman ‘Vangeline was gone. So, she just sat there, knowing that he knew she was with him, even if she couldn’t hear him or see him at the moment.

  Samuel collapsed when he’d heard of his mother’s death. He lay there, sobbing and raging at fate and the cruelness of what had become his life. And now the stress of it all had weakened his mother to the point that she’d become ill and died. He cursed anything and anyone he could think of to curse. Except Clarice. Because each time he threw his gaze in the direction of the gate at the front of the crypt, she was still there, sitting quietly, being there for him, despite the fact she couldn’t see him.

  Once Samuel had cried and raged himself to a point of acceptance, he moved closer to Clarice. He sat on the ground right beside her, and leaned against the gate just opposite her. He needed to find a way to let her know he was there. He tried to pick up leaves and twigs to toss her way, but it didn’t work. He tried to pluck at the black fabric of her habit where it poked through the wrought iron bars, but that didn’t work anyway.

  He huffed out a breath in frustration, and happened to see the single strand of hair that had fallen from her habit, jostle in response. Samuel focused on that strand of hair, and blew at it again. The strand of hair moved again. Excited that he was able to make her hair move, he sat there, blowing and blowing and blowing, until finally Clarice reached up to the side of her face to swat away whatever was tickling her face.

  Samuel seized that moment to blow on her hand.

  Clarice froze and looked into the small bit of ground surrounding the crypt, but of course she saw nothing.

  Samuel blew on her hand and her hair again and Clarice sat up straight, then glanced around the trees and shrubbery along the perimeter of the cemetery itself. There was no breeze blowing the trees this day.

  “That was you, wasn't it?” she asked, holding her hand out again.

  Samuel blew against her hand, then blew at the stray wisp of hair, causing it to tickle her cheek again.

  Clarice smiled. “There you are,” she said, still somewhat subdued, but very happy that he’d managed to communicate with her.

  “I’ll always be here for you, Samuel. Never doubt that,” she promised.

  Samuel blew a warm breeze of air across her face in answer and she smiled.

  “I have a letter for you, from your mother. I promised her I’d read it to you if she wasn’t able to recover.” Clarice sat beside the crypt, her eyes staring off into the distance. “I never believed she wouldn’t survive,” she said.

  After a little while, Clarice finally reached into her pocket and pulled out a letter. “Your mother wrote this letter for you when she began to believe that she’d not recover. I’ll read it for you. Blow on my face if it’s too much and you want me to stop, alright?” she asked.

  Clarice opened the letter and began to read aloud,

  “My dearest, Samuel.

  I fear that I will not recover from this sickness that has taken hold of my lungs. I cannot breathe without coughing, and I have weakened so drastically that I am unable to visit you as I wish to. I know there is a way to break this bargain you were tricked into. Please do not give up hope, my son. Remember the words the girl said to me, “Only a fool can be freed from the ground he keeps. Otherwise, should he cross the threshold, his soul will be given up for the next in line to live its life.” There will come a day those words will have meaning. Do not hesitate, when they do. Rush through the threshold without pause. I hope to see you on the other side when you finally find the answers that have eluded us. I shall leave this world with your face in my mind, your name on my lips, and love for you in my heart. Know that you have been my every happiness, Samuel.

  All my love,

  Your Maman, Evangeline.”

  Samuel sat opposite Clarice on his side of the fence, sobbing as she read his mother’s letter to him.

  Clarice sat quietly with him after she’d finished reading ‘Vangeline’s letter until she felt like a suitable amount of time had passed. Then she began speaking to him. “I’ve had my father’s remains removed from this crypt. I am ashamed to say that I didn’t think of it sooner. I am very sorry that you had to share this space with him. But, no more. He’s been moved to Potter’s Field. I have another crew scheduled to come this afternoon. They will change the name on the crypt to Dupont. I have arranged for your mother to be interred here as well. I hope that is acceptable to you.”

  “Thank you, Clarice. Thank you,” he said over and over again, though he knew she couldn’t hear him.

  After a while, Clarice stood, and Samuel got to his feet with her. She extended her arm through the bars of the gate so he could touch her if he wanted to. “I have to go now, but I’ll be back tomorrow for your mother’s service. And I’ll keep visiting afterward. Do not fear, Samuel. I will never leave you alone.”

  Samuel caressed her arm like he always did, hoping she could feel his touch. But she pulled away and walked away from him, her head hanging low as she went, her sadness at the loss of his mother easily read in her mannerisms.

  Chapter 5

  The next morning ‘Vangeline Dupont was interred in the magnificent white marble crypt now bearing her family name. No other but Clarice knew that it also was home to Samuel Dupont.

  Clarice walked just behind the priest that led the procession of followers, friends, and believers to the crypt. After the service was done, and Maman was interred, her fellow practitioners performed their own service to celebrate the life of Maman ‘Vangeline. They played music and burned incense. They left little gifts and offerings in her memory, and thanked Clarice for providing such a nice crypt for their priestess.

  Clarice watched everything they did very respectfully, and remained beside the gate enclosing the crypt itself. From time to time she’d feel a slight breeze across her cheek and turned toward it with a smile. “I love you, Samuel,” she’d whisper. Then she’d receive another breeze across her cheek, letting her know he loved her, too.

  Once everyone had said their goodbyes, Clarice stayed behind with Samuel. And there she sat until dusk, when she finally had to go.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” she promised.

  Samuel stood inside his gated prison, watching his love who was once a beautiful, young girl, with life ahead of her, wander away from him as a solitary, stoic, Catholic nun. His heart was broken anew for two reasons now: his mother had left this world for the next, leaving him behind, and his beloved Clarice was wasting her life away as she mourned what could have been with him.

  ~~~~~

  Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and months turned into years. Twice a week, without fail, Clarice came to visit Samuel. Some days she’d sit and read to him, others she’d clea
r away the offerings left behind by those faithful to Maman ‘Vangeline even in death. They left little gifts for her and prayers for whatever it was they desired scribbled onto little scraps of paper.

  Clarice didn’t throw them away. She organized them and placed them inside the gate where she hoped Samuel enjoyed them as well as the visits from his mother’s followers.

  Their time went on like this, and eventually Samuel began to notice a change in his Clarice. Her face was aging. Her hair, where it peeked from beneath her habit, was beginning to show wisps of silver. She was growing old. He thought her more beautiful than ever, and on the days filled with fog and mists made sure to say the words slowly, so she could read his lips as they moved. ‘I love you,’ and ‘So beautiful.’

  Clarice would blush and lower her lashes as she shyly glanced at the ground as a result of his compliments.

  Then, eventually, the day came that she did not visit. Then another and another.

  Until finally, the men arrived at the crypt to open it for another’s interment. Samuel watched as they respectfully moved his mother’s remains to the side, just to the right of the main dais inside the crypt, then cleaned the dais for whomever they thought to place inside it next.

  The next day, when they carried in Clarice’s coffin with their priest leading the funerary procession, and her sister nuns gathered and sang their prayers in celebration of her life, he wept tears of heartbreak. Not for himself, but for the world, because they’d lost such a beauteous and selfless creature as his Clarice. Samuel mourned alone, silently screaming his suffering to the winds.

  His existence was no longer needed, and as he contemplated just walking out of the gate enclosing the hallowed ground he was bound to, Clarice’s fellow sisters approached the gate and caught his attention in a way he never expected.