Lucy felt like she had heard this name before, but she couldn’t point out from where exactly she had heard the name. It sounded familiar to her ears, but if she had heard the name, it must have been from a distant memory.
She stared at the woman who watched her while she tried to remember but in no vain. The woman named Madame Fraunces then fished for something in her pocket before pulling out a cigar, and Lucy’s eyes widened.
“Is it allowed to smoke here?” questioned Lucy.
The woman chuckled at the young vampiress innocence, “We are vampires and not inside the gates of Heaven. I think it is perfectly fine. Would you like to have one?” she offered, and Lucy shook her head.
“I am fine. Thank you,” replied Lucy, watching the woman lighting the cigar. “How long have you been here?”
“It is hard to remember. A day feels like an eternity and a year feels worse than that. I think the wanderers in the, in between world forget about time,” said the woman, turning around and starting to walk again.
Lucy looked at the light that came from the gates of the Heaven that Madame Fraunces had faced her back against, and she followed the woman. Now that she was dead, she would have to live like one of them, and deep down in her mind, sadness came to spread. She didn’t even get the chance to say her goodbyes, and her life had been taken away with one snap.
“I have been watching you for quite some time, Lucy. All of you,” confessed the woman, her gaze turning soft and almost warm. “In the time I have watched people, I would have never thought that you would be the person who would be turning special.”
Lucy didn’t understand what the woman meant, but she quietly listened to her.
“It is sad that you had to go through all those hardsh.i.p.s and heartbreak,” said Madame Fraunces and hearing this, Lucy’s eyes widened. “Some of us wanderers miss our home and we visit the living world to watch whom we once knew and the life that once belonged to us.”
“Like the guardian angels?” asked Lucy, her eyes looking at the woman with intrigue.
“Unfortunately, we can do nothing but watch people carry on with their lives,” murmured the woman under her breath.
The path where they walked now was turning heavier with the foggy clouds, and Lucy tried to keep up with the woman’s footsteps so that she wouldn’t lose her. The place where she was in looked like a vast, never-ending forest of trees and clouds.
“I have come across only a few wanderers because people in here can get lost but sometimes we meet in the living world as shadows,” continued the woman. “Like the rest, I have been watching you, Lucy. Life might seem unfair and hard, but follow your heart as you have followed since the beginning. Your heart is the key to your answers. I know who killed you.”
Lucy’s eyes moved in the direction from where she could hear Madame Fraunces’ voice. She wondered why this woman whom she had no idea or clue about was interested in her. Thinking about Samuel, her mind turned bitter in shame. For nearly two decades, she had been his wife, and she had trusted him. But Samuel had returned it with his betrayal and had killed her out of spite.
“If you don’t mind me asking…how did you come to be here?” Lucy asked curiously.
For a few seconds, she didn’t receive a response to her question, and Lucy wondered if the woman had drifted away.
“It was the Queen who had given the order to kill me. Queen Morganna Hawthrone,” Madame Fraunces finally replied to her question.
“Grandmother,” muttered Lucy under her breath.
So many people had died because of her grandmother and also because of her parents. They had been merciless when it came to killing innocent people for their own gains. Lucy wondered why her grandmother had ordered for Madame Fraunces to be killed. At the same time, her eyes widened, and she asked,
“Do you know a woman named Ruby, she-”
“Nana?” asked the woman, and Lucy could feel as if the seed of hope she had sown had erupted from the ground to start giving out new leaves. But the woman said, “She’s not here. She must have walked through the gates.”
As fast as the hope in her had risen, it shattered, and Lucy turned quiet. All these years she had spent praying for Nana’s peace, and if she was in Heaven, she was not going to be sad anymore. It seemed like the woman she was walking right now wasn’t interested in getting into Heaven and instead preferred to live as a wanderer.
“I am sure she is more than happy in Heaven. The place doesn’t let down and it gives the people who deserve a new life, a life full of peace and happiness which can be found only there,” Madame Fraunces cheered Lucy up. “I know she means a lot to you, considering how you place flowers on her grave.”
Lucy didn’t know how to feel, now that she knew there was someone who had been watching her in the cemetery.
“I am sorry that you had to die because of my grandmother,” Lucy apologized, stopping her feet for an instant before she bowed. “Only if it weren’t so…”
“It is fine. That old hag received far worse punishment than I or anyone else except for the punishment giver had on his mind,” a faint smile appeared on the woman’s lips.
A pinch of curiosity arose in Lucy’s mind at the woman’s words, wondering how Calhoun must have delivered her death.
Lucy turned a little apprehensive as they were walking to the darker side of the clouds, she asked, “Why are we walking in the opposite direction of where Heaven is?”
The woman stopped walking, turning to her and said, “It seems like your time hasn’t come yet.” Stepping closer to her, the Madame placed her index finger on Lucy’s forehead. “It was good talking to you, Lucy Hawthrone,” and suddenly, a blinding light emerged in front of her, making her close her eyes.
