Our Last Goodbye

Our past

               You would think on your wedding day that you would feel happy, in love, and excited. Wouldn't you? That's how it started out. The year is 1813, I have met the love of my life and luckily for me, my parents even agreed to the marriage. His name is Alexie and he has the most gorgeous brown hair almost like the mahogany color of my favorite book shelf. I know that it's weird to compare the two but they're the two most important things to me.

               He had the eyes of precious emerald stones, they are the kind of eyes you get lost in. We would go out to picnics and just talk for hours. Staring into those eyes, never wanting to come back out of the trance I was in. His voice was the sweetest music, it was my drug. No...he was my drug. The only drug that I would ever want to get lost in.

                I was wearing my mothers' wedding gown. Ever since I was a young girl I've dreamed of marrying the love of my life in that dress, specifically. But I was a few inches shorter and weighed a little less than her. I altered the gown and added my favorite kind of French lace to it. Looking in the mirror now above my vanity, it's better than I have ever dreamed. I put my slippers on and looked at my best friend.

               Alana is already married, being 2 years older than me, that was a granted. She's known about Alexie since the ball that we met at. She never really cared for him until she saw how happy he had made me. And now we're here, face to face, grinning like idiots. She had already applied my rouge and she put her hands on my shoulders. We both nodded at each other, I knew I was ready. As I was walking down the staircase in my family home, I slowly ran my hand down the banister. Remembering my rambunctious youth, sliding down this same banister, and hiding under the stairs afterward. This was a bittersweet moment for me, I was getting married, leaving behind the only home I had ever known but Alexie and I will be moving to Ireland in a fortnight to start our own family.

                 The wedding was outside in the garden, the place we met. But on my way out I saw an old woman. "Miss, please do you have any food? Or maybe a place to stay?" I looked at her, touched her cheek and smiled. "Alana, can you please take her inside and get her settled? I'm sure that my dad won't mind." I say, looking back at her, "I may even be able to convince him to give you a job here if you'd like. You can stay as long as you'd like." The woman looked up at me with genuine happiness in her eyes and she touched the hand that was on her cheek. "Thank you miss. You will a long happy life, many years in fact." She said to my puzzled expression. "Claire, come on everyone is waiting for you!" My little sister Alva came running up to me in her pale pink lacy gown. At 11 she was already as tall as me and just as beautiful. I looked at the old woman once more and then walked towards the group.

                We were in the middle of saying our vows, holding hands, and smiling at each other when Alana and the old woman came back. As soon as they walked into the garden I felt a sharp pain in my heart I looked down and saw blood I looked back up at Alexie wide eyed, but he looked at me puzzled. I fell against his body and he started to scream. "Claire, what's wrong? Claire, I need you to answer me. Someone, please get the doctor!" I saw the old woman standing behind Alexie, she was staring down at me, smiling as she bent down. She looked younger to me for some reason. "My sweet child, I have given you a gift just as you have given me one. It's both a blessing and a curse. This man and you were destined to be together, but I have given you many lives. Before this, and you will get many more after this. I have gotten too old to kill you myself so from now on your sweet Alexie has to do it. The only way you can come back is if he takes your life. You will be presented with an experience where you will be dying and if he is not there to finish the job then you will never come back again." She said to me wiping a tear from my cheek. "Why are you doing this to me?" I asked pain lining my voice. "I am not the one doing this, my sweet. It is the fates, and I am just a pawn in this terrible game." She told me as she started to stand. My vision started to blur and all my family and friends were hovering over us.

                "Claire, I love you with all of my heart, please don't go. I won't be able to bear it, Claire." I could hear him say it to me as he cradled my head. He kissed me and I tried with every ounce of power to kiss him back. "I love you, Alexie." I said to him with a faint whisper. I felt my life slipping away when I heard another whisper from the love of my life. "If I can't be with you, then I'm no use here." I heard a metal against leather sound and then a collective gasp with screams. I tried to open my eyes, or at least find Alexie's hand but I couldn't. I died on my wedding day, I died with the love of my life bleeding out above me. Alexie had taken my fathers' dagger from its sheath and stabbed himself in the heart. But unfortunately for Alexie, he didn't die.

                Alexie was cursed as well; the old woman had come to him many years ago and told him that there would come a day when he was the happiest and that happiness would be ripped away from him. He will want to be at peace but he will not be able to, he will suffer. And that's what the old woman had meant. Alexie played dead for years in our catacomb, he wandered around the cemetery, he wanted to die. In fact, Alexie had tried everything he could think of. How do I know this? I was in purgatory all those years. I had to watch the man that I loved suffer without me for a hundred years. I walked among him and other humans but no one ever saw or heard me, until I had met her again.

                Alana had slipped into a darken state after our deaths, but she had continued with her life. Her husband had moved them to the Americas shortly after we had died. They had 2 gorgeous blonde haired sons and on the 15th year of our death she birthed a beautiful daughter, she had named her after me. Claire was only a few hours old when Alana had died. She was bleeding uncontrollably and no one had known. Alana had died peacefully in her sleep, holding her daughter. I was there and I saw her ghost, staring down at her beautiful daughter, stroking her hair. She was fast asleep, as content as a new born baby could be.

                She turned to me, sensing my presence I'm sure. She started to cry and got up slowly, still in her blood-soaked nightgown, she walked over to me and hugged me tightly. I hugged her and we cried together. She got to pass over, or whatever happens to people after they die, that aren't stuck in purgatory. But before she did I promised that I would watch over Claire, her whole life, and I did. She lived a long and happy life, in fact she married a prince.