This Burning Desire by Joslinne Morgan (the gingerbread man read aloud TXT) 📖

it out…"

"What?" he urged her to continue, stroking her hair.

"Remember me," she pulled back and kissed his cheek. "Remember me and remember Jean. And picture how it might have been if we had lived. Promise me you will, at least once a day."

"Every chance I get," he vowed.

She smiled at him, then, and he felt as if his heart were being torn from his chest. He couldn't imagine life without Jean-Francis, or Esmeralda, or even Jolie … and now all three had been taken from him, in the cruelest manner imaginable. And that was the exact reason that Claude Frollo would one day answer for the transgressions of the past, and then pay with his life.

"Take me away," Clopin said, spinning dramatically to face the guard. The guard, who had all the personality of a wooden door, merely beckoned and started off down the hall. With one last look behind him, Clopin was on his way to freedom – and revenge.

~*~*~*~*~

Jolie didn't have to wait long before a second guard came to her cell. This one had about twenty percent less personality than the first, so he didn't happen to notice the body lying on the ground, either.

"It is time," was all he said. Three little words that rang so ominously in her ears. The dour way he spoke them was enough to make her realize exactly what was about to happen.

"What is the charge?" she asked.

"Prostitution, kidnapping, and blackmail." He grinned nastily and jerked her arms behind her, binding her hands tightly with a rope.

"And how am I to die?" she didn't even wince with the contact. She wasn't afraid of it, whatever it was. Not now. She had nothing left to live for.

"You are to be hung in the town square," he replied, turning her around and shoving her out the door. "Orders of the Minister." He slammed the door shut, though the security was superfluous. Dead bodies don't just get up and walk out of their cells.

Jolie glanced up to the heavens. No tears, this time, just the shadow of a smile that still hung about her lips.

"I love you, Jean." She whispered. "I'll be up there to join you soon."

Chapter Twenty-One: The Final Chapter

It wasn't physical illness, it was beyond that. It was something greater by far that would not go away. Revulsion would be a gross understatement, but if she were even going to begin to explain, that would be the word she would use.

"What have you become?" she asked herself, running her hand over the balcony railing. First, she betrayed her people by shying away at whatever price from the flames of the pyre. And now it was as if she were about to betray them all over again, by taking the greatest enemy of their kind into her bed.

And how she despised him! There was no word for the depths her hatred for him ran. It ran deeper than her veins, deep into her soul … where it would be engraved for all eternity. She hated him.

And to be married to him … to wake up to him every morning, to have him claim her as his own, to have his hands forever and always running over whatever part of her they fancied to touch. Caressing her skin, running through her hair … the very idea sent shivers down her spine. She could not commit an act of the flesh with the man; she would rather die a gruesome, terrible death.

She glanced down at the street below, fully expecting vomit to rise to her mouth at any minute. How welcome death seemed now, how much more welcome than it had seemed that day when faced with the flames that were there to take her life. So many things had transpired since then and none of them good. She couldn't see what would have been different if she had accepted her fate that day. Clopin wouldn't be alive, was that why God was doing this to her?

It all seemed so irrelevant, so pointless. Why bother with any of it? And marriage …! How perfectly galling of him to approach her on the matter, to dupe her into it in such a manner. It was devious, it was cruelty, and she knew he didn't care. Or perhaps he just refused to face the truth about himself, all the while knowing what the truth really was. He was no man of God, he was a hypocrite, a rapist, a liar… and so many other things.

How easy it would be for her to die, to sink into the black oblivion of death where the sights and sounds of the world would be shut off. Where she could just drift through emptiness for eternity, and eventually wander towards either Heaven or Hell, wherever fate decided to land her. She knew she wasn't good enough for Heaven yet, it didn't seem like she had done anything to deserve being sent to Hell. Perhaps she wouldn't go to either; perhaps she would just have to wander the world like the lost souls of children's stories. Who had done nothing spectacular with their lives to deserve either Purgatory or Paradise. Just ordinary people, leading ordinary lives, trying to make their way in a world that didn't want them in it.

Her mother had spoken to her about death, once. When she was still young, far too young to remember most things. "Death is going to happen to all of us eventually, and there is nothing we can do to prevent it." She had said, stroking her young daughter's hair. "We must accept it, and the people we leave behind must also accept it. And they must move on with their lives, until it is their own time to die."

Esmeralda closed her eyes, remembering the question she had asked next. "But mother, why must we die?"

"Because every time one person dies, another is given life." Her mother replied. "Such is the circle of life. And we are all a part of it."

Perhaps Frollo wouldn't approve, but she didn't really care. The theory was good enough for her; it had been good enough for her mother. Esmeralda's time to die had already come, and she had run from it. Now, there would be no running. She couldn't avoid fate any longer … it had caught up with her.

The cool night breeze kissed her cheek, as if encouraging her, and she knew what she had to do. In Notre Dame Cathedral, high, high up in the bell tower, Quasimodo rung the morning mass. Quasimodo who was a mystery and a monster to most, a dog to his most beloved master, and the dearest friend Esmeralda had ever possessed. She wished she could say goodbye to him, but she knew he wouldn't understand, and his tears might persuade her else wise. No, she had to seize the moment, or it would never happen.

She didn't even spare Frollo a thought as she climbed up onto the balcony railing. But she thought of Clopin, and wished him well. Her last thought was of Phoebus, and a mental image of her arms entwined around his neck, a gentle kiss being shared. Him picking her up in his arms to carry her off to bed. She was so tired, so very tired…

It was her last thought as her body impacted with the waiting road below. Then, it was all darkness and sweet, sweet oblivion.

~*~*~*~*~

Woe to the servant who had to bring Judge Dom Claude Frollo bad news.

The poor man was trembling as it was as he made his way across the hallway, seeking out his master and half hoping that he wouldn't find him.

Frollo was waiting in his chamber, as always, getting ready for the day. The servant knocked before he entered, praying that his master was in the bath, at least…

"Enter," the dark voice bade. The servant swallowed nervously, and stepped in.

"M-My lord," he said, bowing. "I have some … dreadful news."

"What is it?" Frollo snapped, adjusting his hat on his head.

"The gypsy Esmeralda, my lord … she is dead."

He expected a burst of outrage. He expected to be beaten to a pulp, or thrown out the window himself. But for one who had just heard his wife to be was lying dead on a road, he was surprisingly serene.

"How," he asked calmly. "And where."

"J-Just a few minutes ago, my lord, ten or fifteen by now. She fell off the balcony and landed on the street. Her neck was broken; there was nothing to be done."

Without a word, Frollo shoved past the unfortunate servant who ended up rammed into a wall. The judge fairly flew down the stairs, making amazing speed from what one would expect of someone his age, and was out the doors and in the middle of the street in half a minute, looking around wildly for the source of the servant's claims.

There. There she laid, Esmeralda … his beautiful Esmeralda, on the street. Her raven hair soaked with blood, her neck twisted at an awkward angle, and her blue green eyes staring straight up at the sky, the blaze in them gone forever.

It was a moment that wasn't quite real. Like a terrible, terrible nightmare that he could not wake up from. Of course it would be that way… the very day he managed to get her in his grasp, to convince her to be his, to hold happiness and a future in his very hands… that very day she would die. Of course. That was the way it worked. Why was God punishing him this way?

"God," he hissed under his breath, clenching the cross at his neck. "Why her? Why not me? If I am the one with the sin, punish me!" But he was being punished, in the most cruel yet effective way possible.

He walked quickly towards the body, the crowd of spectators parting for him like Moses at the Red Sea as he drew nearer. He knelt down by her side, and placed his hands on her side, lifting her up and placing her upper body in his lap. Blood soaked through his robe, but he didn't care.

"Esmeralda," he muttered, stroking her cheek. "La Esmeralda, did I do this to you? Forgive me, my dear, I never meant to cause you such pain."

But it was all useless now, wasn't it? How he wished he had been there for those last moments, to beg her, to promise her anything if she would just rethink such a rash decision. She was so young, so full of life and promise. She could have done anything, been anything… with him…

He stroked her ankles, tiny ankles, that would never dance again. She was already growing stiff in his arms, and he couldn't bear it. He had held dying men before and none of it, not even the most gruesome of deaths, even held a candle to this.

This was it, divine punishment for his sins. Every lustful thought, every damned dream that left him writhing at night, every innocent life taken for her sake had now been paid for. Somewhere during this mad nightmare, he had strayed from his path of righteousness. He worshipped Esmeralda, not God. And now, this was God's way of removing temptation from his life and putting him back on the right path. He had been redeemed, again. That only happened once, maybe twice in a man's life. He should not waste it.

"Au revoir,