Okay everybody so to get us ready for Pretty Little Things II I thought we could catch up with Clara DeLune.
LiLe : Hi Clara !
Clara : Hi
Lile : Okay so Clara we just want to catch up with what’s going on with you. Like a recap of what’s happened. How about we start from the top.
Clara : Sure. Hmm. Okay. So, Eleven years ago I got into a car accident and died. I ended up in this peculiar purgatory called Litany Lane. It looked like a quiet quaint Victorian neighborhood with beautiful candy colored houses. I inherited my grandmother’s house and one day while exploring my new neighborhood I sort of fell off of a bike and met my neighbor Emile. He’s like one of my best friends now. At the time Emile also happened to live with Mr. Fierro, who was this secretive and broody man, he had like this powerful air, he’s was very smart, well connected but he was quiet, reflective and spent most of his time growing roses, which he was kind of obsessed with because they were beautiful living things in a dead world that had been cruel to him. . .oh, you know I just got that. Also he is kind of handsome.
LiLe : Right but—
Clara : Did I mention I’m kind of a piano prodigy ? My family is from old money. My Father’s family started the International DeLune School of Music and we used to make premier classical instruments and music education software . . .but we sold the company, except for the Rochester school , to a conglomerate for 500 million dollars in the late 90s and invested in Apple stock.
Lile : Well I guess that explains why you’re so rich,
Clara : Anyway it turns out this.. . Litany Lane place--
LiLe : Well, but actually Litany Lane was a neighborhood in a place called Nightfall.
Clara : I know I was there. . . so there was king named Victo--
LiLe : How does purgatory have a king ?
Clara : I mean I’m not really sure I guess it’s been like a tradition ? This one family has ruled purgatory for years. Every 50 years the current monarch becomes a Specter and kills the next living blood relative ? It’s kind of tragic. IDK. I didn’t really care about any of that.
Lile : and a Specter is ?
Emile : I Feel like I can explain this as I was writing a book on Specters before I . . . er. . . was bought back to life. You see a Specter is a soul that has decided to return to the world of the living. One becomes a Specter after burning your soul. We often call them ghost. The states of these “ghost” vary depending on their unfinished business if you will. A Specter at peace might come across as a friendly spirit while a highly unsettled Specter might be a . . . poltergeist.
Clara : Right, what he said. So back to Victor. He was obsessed with me because I’m well pretty and charming. But I already had a prince charming.
Lile : I thin—
Clara : His name was Peter Morrati. He and I were best friends growing up and we started getting serious after college and we were engaged . . . but secretly we both felt to young to get married. Anyway Victor is like seriously trying to court me and I find out he’s only into me because I’m a virgin. He thinks I can help him join the living again and---why are you cringing, Lile ?
Lile : No reason. I just hate this plot device and--
Clara : You know what’s cringe worthy ? It turns out Mr. Fierro died in Chataqua, NY 1955. Nine months before my father was born in the same small town. Now that sounds bad, but it turns out he and my Grandmother were childhood best friends who fell in love.
Lile : Awww, Like you and Peter
Clara : Oh, hm. Yeah.. . I guess so. Anyway they were planning to get engaged once Fierro was able to find a way to support a family. It turns out Fierro was was kind of raised in poverty on a decrepit old farm during The Great Depression by his strict religiously oppressive and domineering foster parents who only took him in as free physical labor.
But, when my rich French grandfather, Roger DeLune, came to town he and my grandmother hit it off and she found herself pregnant. Mr. Fierro offered to marry Lucie and take responsibility. He loved my grandmother so much and wanted to raise a family with her. They all fought one night and my grandfather stabbed Fierro to death in a drunken rage.
Lile : Oh well but actually, the stab wound wasn’t fatal. When Fierro didn’t bleed out fast enough your grandfather strangled Fierro to death with a chain which makes it you know. . .first degree murder and New York had the death penalty back then . . .
Clara : Eh, right.
LiLe : And your grandmother never told anyone she watched Roger kill the man she loved and they both dumped his body into a quarry.
Clara : It was complicated. I mean Lucie really loved Fierro, but when he was alive he was overworked and burdened. Lucie couldn’t bring a baby into that world. She figured he was better off dead. He could finally. . . rest.
LiLe : Interesting insight.
Clara : So my grandparents were married for 18 long years before
getting divorced. They were super sweet to me. I mean I guess my grandfather was kind of a drunk
and angry sometimeds and I guess my
grandmother did spend way more money that she ever needed, but she was amazing
!
LiLe : So. . .back to Mr. Fierro hating you
Clara : Oh, right. So it turns out Fierro was so mean to me because well . . .my family killed him and got away with it. They had a great life and he was . . . dead. So, *mumble mumble*
LiLe : What’s that ?
Clara : *sighs* So when my grandmother dies in 2005. . . she and Addison Fierro are reunited and they get. . . married.
LiLe : Right. Because When Lucie is in Nightfall she sees the same boy from her youth except now he’s clean cut, smart, well dressed and has a fair bit of power and prestige. Plus mentally and physically. . . he hasn’t changed.
Clara : Sure. So they were ridiculously happy for two years. My grandmother was used to living large and Fierro (despite all the trappings) was still a simple man. He couldn’t keep up with her. My grandmother started to worry he was losing interest in her because well, he’d seen me.
Lile : I really thin—
Clara : Anyway my grandmother decided to become a Specter and left a note telling him if he really loved her he would become a Sepctre to so they could ALWAYS be together, but he was too afraid. When he didn’t become a Specter my ghost-grandother caused my car accident and killed me. Because becoming a Specter makes you a little cray cary.
Lile : Okay, so—
Clara : So, yada yada Victor gets all rampagey because he really wants to live again. There is a fire in Litany Lane and you’d think we’d all become Specters . . .but we don’t. Something happens and we are all given a second chance. Except for Victor, he became a Specter.
Lile : Why ? Why did everyone else get a second chance and he became a Specter ?
Clara : Um, shouldn’t you know the answer to that ?
Lile : Moving on
Clara : So, Mr. Fierro was given a second chance. He was there with me in present day. Peter and I broke off our engagement and I took some time to find myself. Fierro reclaimed the old farmland and money from a trust my grandmother had built for the Fierro family (out of guilt) It was weird at first, but also intoxicating ? He was still the man who’d been wronged by my family. Wronged by time. He was all wrong for me but I couldn’t stay away. We thought we’d figure everything out but then. . . well remember my ghost!grandmother
Lile : Lucie, yes.
Clara : Well, she kind of posesed me ? You know how ghost do that sometimes ?
LiLe : I’m familiar
Clara : And she sort of decided she wanted to possess my body forever so she and Fierro could be together forever.
Lile : How did he feel about that
Clara : I’m not really sure. Fierro was going through an existential crisis.
LiLe : Being reincarnated in the future will do that to you . . .
Clara : Yeah . . . so he was sort of obsessed with getting revenge on my family for murdering him.
LiLe : That’s dark.
Clara : Yeah, I mean my grandmother possessed me and held me hostage in his house and I think he kind of like toying with my family . . . but he also sort of cared about me ?
LiLe : Go on.
Clara : But then he started to realize my grandmother was a little power mad and he started to realize how terrible this all was. We started working together to try and escape. And –
LiLe : And . . .
Clara: What?
LiLe : You know. . .
Clara : Well I guess at one point we were finally alone because my Grandmother locked us in a greenhouse for trying to escape and one thing kind of lead to another and. . .
Lile : Go on
Clara : Right, so Victor—
Lile : Back up. . .I feel like you need to spill some tea
Clara : So . . . I guess at some point I did sort of lose my virginity. I don’t know. I mean . . . I have zero regrets. . . I guess I never realized that I’m really out of my depth . . . it all happened so fast . . .um, it’s actually kind of a miracle I even got pregnant--
LiLe : Hmm, okay and do you think a tiny part of Fierro wanted to get back at his killer by deflowering Roger DeLune’s youngest and favorite granddaughter
Clara : Ew. So Victor—
LiLe : And like,. . . your grandmother was possessing you half the time. Wasn’t that weird? Didn’t you think about that?
Clara : Look, I didn’t want to die a virgin . . . again. The opportunity presented itself and I made it happen--
Lile : Um--
Clara : So Victor--
Lile : He’s back !!!
Clara : So it turns out my grandmother learned all her ghost-y tricks from Victor. He agreed to help her because Victor hates Fierro and mefor getting a second chance. Lucie said that if Victor agreed to help her she’d get a body for him to possess too, so Lucie kidnaps a child for Victor to possess
LiLe : Creepy
Clara : Yeah, in the end Victor runs away with the body and Fierro tries to . . . excise Lucie, which does not go well. Fearing the end, Fierro kind of decides that before he leaves that he wants to confront my grandfather.
LiLe : Oh
Clara : But it turns out my grandfather died in his sleep and through a series of misunderstanding Fierro get stabbed
LiLe : You mean you stabbed him
Clara : Right. And the last glimpse I get of him he’s dying on the ground in the woods. Lucie agrees to stop possessing me because Fierro is dying and will become a ghost liker her. I head home and I think my adventures with ghost, strange things and the paranormal are over. I was so so so wrong
Lile : Do tell
Clara : Well, believing Fierro to be dead I went to Rome to find myself. I reconnected with Peter Moratti, we moved in together and pretty soon we just fell into this intensely passionate and indulgent relationship.
LiLe : Go on
Clara : We partied, went to state dinners, spent tons of money and had a lot of crazy sex—
Lile : Wait…what ?
Clara : Um. . . So I started getting really sick and I found out I was pregnant. I wasn’t surprised because Peter and I hadn’t been preventing . . . but then they told me I was almost three and a half months along and I’d only been in Rome for four weeks. Since it was to late to get an abortion, I told Peter I needed to go home and considered my options. I wanted to give her up for adoption, then I realized she was the only thing I had left of Mr. Fierro. I moved back home and gave birth to my daughter Rose.
LiLe : Awwww. What would you have named her if it was a boy ?
Clara : Um, Addison.
Lile : AWWWWW
Clara : So, I was so not prepared to become a single mom at 23. Rose’s home birth was really traumatic and I ended up in the hospital and had to have a painful emergency hysterectomy, so we never really bonded and our relationship got off to a bad start.
Rose and I lived with my parents, and my Father just never accepted Rose. He didn’t even want her to have his family name. He was disappointed in me and Rose was such a fussy and difficult baby. We hardly left the house or spent time with my parents. I spent most of time at school or in my room working on my PhD.
LiLe : Um, but didn’t your parents meet Mr. Fierro ? Didn’t they realize that he and Rose both had albinisim ? Can’t they do the math and figure out you got pregnant when you disappeared and didn’t they wander why he disappeared and never came back?
Clara : Well, I sort of let everyone think I got pregnant before I disappeared. Also DeLune Denial
Lile : Huh ?
Clara : Denial is a DeLune family trait. I mean my grandparents killed a man and pretend like it didn’t happen. My dad pretend like his dad wasn’t an alcoholic and we all pretend like it’s not odd that my dad married my mom when she was 16 and he was 26 and that they had a “marriage saving” baby boy when she was 40. And you know what? If my fatherless baby doesn’t show emotion, eat and manages to survive things that should kill her. Why should I acknowledge it?
Lile : wait. . what ?
Clara : Um . . . so when Rose is three Victor starts stalking
us--
Lile : Victor The ghost ?
Clara : Yeah, it turns out his host body died so he needs a new one and I think he wants Roses’.
Lile : Ew.
Clara : So we try to run from him. Best place to hide ? Europe. I reconnected with Peter Morrati we pick up right where we left off--
Lile : Didn’t you have a job ?
Clara : I was still just a summer TA. I’d just gotten my PHD and it turns out finding a job with one of those things is super hard. So, Rose and I are in Europe and she’s complains and misbehaves the entire time.
Lile : What about Mr. Fierro ? I mean he didn’t really die ? What was he up to for 3 years ?
Clara : Well he---
Lile : Wait, how do you know what he was up too ?
Clara : He writes about it in his journals.
LiLe : Actually Clara I think we should let Mr. Fierro tell his side.
Mr. Fierro : I certainly can
Clara : But—
Mr. Fierro : I’d expected to die on the cold winter night in 2007. It was Christmas Eve. Instead Emile, the good friend that he is, saved my life and gave me shelter. Unfortunately I was no longer alone. The Specter of my dead wife Lucie was quite figuratively attached to me. She was a dark entity back then and caused death and destruction wherever we went.
She promised me she would stop her destructive haunting if I promised to never go back to Clara. I agreed and I left New York. After some rumination I set off the see the world with the literal shadow of my dead wife following close behind. I went anywhere and everywhere with one sole purpose—
Lile : Do tell
Mr. Fierro : To find a way to rid myself of Lucie’s ghost—
Lile : So you could return to Clara and your daughter ?
Fierro : To be honest I didn’t’ t know I had a daughter. I simply wanted to return to Clara. She’s a kind and spirited woman and one of the few people who knew my full story. She is the kind of woman who lives her life to the fullest despite who is or is not in it. She has a passion for the intangible that somedays I wished was contagious. Perhaps all wealthy confident modern women are like this. I can’t say . . I just knew I wanted to explore what was there. If anything. Perhaps I was blinded by her uncommon beauty ?
As it were, Emile knew I had a daughte but he never told me e because he knew I wouldn’t stay away, he wanted to shelter Rose from the darkness in my life.
I began studying and learning about the occult, reincarnation, spiritualism and Pneumatology. Anything to help me get rid of the ghost haunting me. My search lead me from the great oceans, across Europe and the Southeast. I spent quite some time in a secluded Ashram in India--.
LiLe : Yes. Such a convenient plot device to keep you out of contact with Emile.
Fierro : Perhaps, but I also learned about focus, concentration. To be blunt I was curious about the ideology of reincarnation. I learned to I let go of my anxieties about my situation. I learned self reliance and what it takes to push your physical and mental being. I learned to accept this quite usual life of mine
Lile : Yeah, I guess we never focused on that part of it. So was there like Yoga involve ?
Fierro : Swimming is my physical activity of choice, I even rented a house by the ocean for a bit.
LiLe : Right, that’s were you guys are in the epilogue.
Fierro : After three years of traveling I found myself exhausted. I moved to Ireland. I decided to settle in the remote Irish countryside, where I could live in peace with my ghost and troubling thoughts. I felt settled.
Then I got in contact with a renowned British occultist named Robert Essex, I made an appointment to meet him in England.
Emile told me to stay at the St. Marks hotel. He’d been in communication with Clara and knew she’d be there. After more han three years I once again I laid eyes on Ms. DeLune and I met Rose, whom at first I did find peculiar but in a matter of minutes I was quite in love with. Victor made his grand appearance. He revealed that he’d stolen Rose’s soul to –
Lile : Wait Specters can do that ?
Fierro : There are a great many things Specter can do that we are still learning about. Unfortunately humans have deemed research into such things as a pseudoscience so we may never truly know the full extent of their essence. Victor had taken Rose’s soul to make himself more human. Being soulless was why Rose wasn’t like normal children. By taking Rose’s soul she and Victor were bonded in a way that was quiet unsettling. In order to save her we had to make a deal with Victor
Lile : Another deal ?
Fierro : A Fasutian deal is the only way to deal with otherworldly creatures. After all there are some things money can’t buy. Victor agreed to let Rose go if either Ms. DeLune or I joined him as a Specter, while the other gave their soul to Rose
Lile : Sounds painful
Fierro : It is, as the only way to lose your soul is to murder someone and the only way to become a Specter is to be murdered
Lile : SO ONE OF YOU HAD TO MURDER THE OTHER
Fierro : Correct, but that was not an option I was willing to take. Instead we each gave up half our souls. Ensuring Rose would have a full life and that…neither of us would ever die.
Lile : Gasps
Fierro : All Specters truly want is company. After all what is ghost story if there is no one to haunt. As long as Clara and I are in this state, a curse as we have come to call it, it means we will never die and that—
Clara : I—um—what ---you know. I don’t want to talk about this. I Just . . . you know let’s just focus on getting Rose to 18. Let’s just be super normal for right now. Then we can talk about. . .other stuff. Am I right ? No need to discuss this.
Fierro : For what its’ worth I believe there is a way to revert this curse, but it may take us years to find it.
Clara : Do we have to talk about this ?
LiLe : I see that Delune Denial is in overtime
Fierro : After we were reunited Clara decided to go back to New York and leave Rose with me. Which perhaps seems unconventional, but as I suspected and later learned was that Martin DeLune had been violent towards Rose. Clara promised to return, but what was suppose to be a week turned into six months. Now if we move along to--
Clara : Hey, what about the part where you killed my father
Fierro : I did not kill your father. Admitly I may have made the poison that killed him and gave it to your older sister but I had a moment of clarity and tried to stop him from drinking it.
Clara : Yeah, because he kidnapped Rose because he thought you were going to kill him and use Rose to inherit all his money which would have been the ultimate revenge since my family murdered you and got away with it.
Fierro : Yes, however I can’t be blamed because you took the poison from your sister, then you and your mother went to confront him and she poisoned him. That’s first degree murder and I for one believe--
Clara : It was voluntary manslaughter. He was abusive and I. . .I don’t want to talk about this anymore. She got 8 years.
Fierro : To be clear, Ms. DeLune her money and appearance lead to her to get a reduced sentence
Clara : Please, can we move on.
LiLe : Right, that who did what thing always get super confusing to me. Moving on.
Clara : So after the trial it turns out my Father never changed his will and his first blood grandchild inherited everything
Lile : Rose ?
Clara : Yep, but I didn’t want the money. I had my trust fund and my grandfather and grandmother’s inheritance, so I gave it to my sisters. 234 million dollars wasn’t going to bring my family back.
Lile : So. Your father is dead. Your mother has been convicted of manslaughter. You have a five year old daughter . . . What do you do next?
Clara : Fierro and I traveled together
Fierro : I still wanted to see more of the world, like Lucie had after divorcing her husband
Clara : Right. But after a year of traveling together someone still wasn’t ready to settle down. I moved to London he moved out to the country to start a business with Emile and we split custody of Rose and settled into life as ex-pats in England.
LiLe : Sounds lovely
Clara : It was but . . . when Rose was seven she was diagnosed with cancer. It turned our world upside down. She received homecare out in the country. I traveled back and forth. It was harder than usual because Fierro lived in an old house that was creepy.”
Fierro : The house was in fine condition. It just happens that for whatever reason Rose is very sensitive to unnatural energy around us and I’m afraid the entities in the house did very little for her well being, but I felt it was important she learn to confront these things because her strange abilities aren’t going away
LiLe : Abilities ? With an “S” ?
Fierro : Well, apart from sensitivity to entities around us. . . often
times when Rose is in stressed or highly emotional the electromagnetic forces that bind--
Clara : Um more importantly we got her into this trial cancer treatment program in Texas and I, like a good mother, quit my job moved to Houtson to help her get better. It was kind of boring but I helped Mr. Fierro with his rose business.
LiLe : Oh, right the wholesale rose business ! Yeah, continuity high five ! Plus you convinced a man who’d been celibate for 8 years to sleep with you.
Clara : Yeah. . .I’m no to sure how that happened—
Fierro : Ms. Leigh I object to—
Clara : I was in Texas alone with Rose most of the time. I thought she was going to die. I mean I gave up half my soul for her and she was not dying that young. Luckily she pulled through and Rose and I moved in with Emile. After a few months I got a job in Austria and Fierro . . . well he. . .
Fierro : I moved back to that remote village in Ireland. I needed quiet
Clara : Yes, and Lucie was also living there. Haunting a bell tower of all places. Yet, I still let Rose visit. It was you, Ghost!Lucie and Rose living so quaintly in the Irish countryside like a little family.
Fierro : We are family Ms. DeLune. Lucie is Rose’s great-grandaughter and stepmother
Clara : Marrying someone when you are both dead doesn’t count---
LiLe : But Fierro. . . you decided to leave Ireland.
Fierro : Yes, I realized Rose needed to be in school with other students. I didn’t want to her to be an outsider like I was as a child. With Rose in boarding school took a bit of grand tour of the countries leading in cultivaton of rosees. I learned so much and I—“
Clara : Was never there
Fierro : Yes. . . After some time away from Rose and Clara I realized the error of my ways. Rose needed both of her parents and quite frankly I.. . enjoyed the short visits in when we were all together. We were a family. . . something I have never had in my entire life. . . and death. It was idiotic of me to run from it because it wasn’t ideal. Because I was afraid one day time would catch up with me against my will
Clara : Oh. . . I. . . I guess I never realized that . That’s never going to happen.
Fierro: Yes, I’m sure. Well then, I went to Austria to propose to Ms. DeLune after one of her performances’ was 2 hours late and when the production had ended I’d planned to ask her to marry me. But I missed her. I had a spare key to her home and I though to wait for her there but Jetlag got the better of me and I feel asleep, it was a miscalculation on my part
Clara : I kind of had a boyfriend. He was this handsome, older and sophisticated man with amazing hair.
LiLe: Umm
Clara : But things with Niklas didn’t go so well. I had a lot of hang ups about being intimate and Rose kept getting kicked out of schools and causing trouble. I’d finally decided to send Rose to my sister’s in Boston. She was so mad she refused to spent time with me and I let her spend the summer with Fierro in Engalnd. At Rose’s 11th birthday--I can’t believe she’s that age. Anyway I found out Fierro had bought an engagement ring for me. We got engaged in a treehouse in the country on a starry night. Rose was there too. It was very sweet.
LiLe ; So what’s next ?
Clara : Well we bought a house together in France
Lile : Why France ?
Clara : I don’t. . . I don’t know ? It just felt. . . due ?
Lile : Okay . . .
Clara : But I must have been on sleeping pills or something because the house I bought was a dump. It’s an abandoned chateau and it’s kind of a cesspool but we are stuck with it.
Lile : Why stay ?
Fierro : Rose said it was very peaceful for her. She wasn’t plagued by the voices she usually hears though I suspect that—
Clara : We put our entire net worth into fixing it up. It took a whole year to get it up to code. I finished out my commitment to the Austrian Symphony and Fierro was still abroad. We’ve just moved in and it’s taking some getting used to.
Fierro : There is still a lot of work to be done and Clara’s brother is coming for the summer and. . .
Clara : What ?
Fierro : The house is unsettled . . .
Clara : What ?
Fierro : That is . . . the foundation isn’t settled. It’s nothing for
you to worry about. . . I’ sure. . I’m
almost certain. . . I believe we are all caught up, so If you don’t’ mind I
need to check on something.
Clara : Where are you going ? Wait . . .
Lile : This went off the rails real fast
Clara : Oh MY GOD. Is he gone ?. Okay. Something weird is going on.
LiLe : What ?
Clara : Look I kind of woke up in an old theatre having no idea how I got there and my engegment ring was gone. I’m freaking out here, but it’s just my sleeping pills. Right ? Right ?
LiLe : I can’t say. I wrote that prologue years ago.
Clara : Look, this has been great. I’m sure everything is going to be fine. It’s fine. It’s all fine. I need to go find some wine. Bye
LiLe : Okay I guess—
Rose : Hello, Ms. Leigh
LiLe : Oh, Rose. You just came out of nowhere.
Rose : Tell me, Ms. Leigh. Do you know anything about the French Revolution ?
LiLe : Um, do you and your mother not know how spoilers work ?
Rose : There is going to be a party.
LiLe : Huh ?
Rose : I can’t say for sure. It’s all very strange. Perhaps you’ll get an invite. I suppose it’s kind of a welcome to the neighborhood.
+++
Okay Who's ready for the Pretty Little Things II Prologue ?