Author's note: I started writing this sequel as more of an experiment because I was curious what Claude Frollo would look like as a ghost (and because I thought it would definitely serve him right to be a peasant ghost for a while). I'm not completely sure what I'm doing and I'm making this up as I go. I don't even know where I'm going to go with this story, but if anyone is still interested and still reading this, feel free to leave comments or constructive criticism and let me know if things aren't making sense.
In real life, I don't believe in ghosts. I'm a recent convert to Christianity (got saved 11-2-18 at 4:15 pm, following a stint in a psychiatric hospital that resulted from a suicide attempt that frankly should have succeeded…story is much too long to tell it all here!). But I still love writing FICTION hahaha. I don't know how ghosts would work even if I did believe in them, so I am making this up as I go. Please let me know if anything I've written is contradicting itself, or needs clarification. I'm always looking to improve :)
"Where am I?" Claude heard himself speaking. "I do not like this business of being moved around against my will." Wherever he was, it was very dark.
"In your own dungeons!" Phoebus' voice.
"Ugh, I thought I'd gotten rid of you."
"No, we're stuck with each other. It's part of that deal that I made with my probation angel." Phoebus grumbled. "And I should have predicted that we'd end up HERE, of all places. Yuck!"
"How did you know?" Claude asked. "Look, if I'm stuck as a ghost, I need to figure this out, and you've got to help me."
"No, I don't want to help you."
"Too bad, because I'm going to keep asking you questions, and you aren't allowed to lie. Now, how did you know that we would end up here?"
"Aaaaaargh." Long, frustrated pause. "So, it's like this. You're disembodied now. You're just a thought, got it? Lots and lots of people throughout the years have imagined you down here rotting in your own dungeon…"
"And since their thoughts put me here…" It made him wonder what all other unsavory endings that people had imagined for him. "Will I next find myself strung up from a noose?"
"Likely. I doubt that you'll have very many pleasant places to haunt," Phoebus commented. "I, on the other hand, haunt every bar in France. And I'm usually reenacting some idiotic drunk stunt."
"Because that's how people remember you," Claude finished the thought. "Well, I suppose that I should be happy that I will not spend my afterlife falling off of a stool at a bar. That must be quite embarrassing for you."
"I get used to it. Well, sort-of used to it. It's still embarrassing," Phoebus admitted. "Like the time I got so drunk that I passed out and some lowlifes stole everything that I had. My pack, my armor, my boots…"
"Your underwear?" Claude interrupted.
"Uh…..no, they left that. Actually, they left it on my head." His voice trailed off, the awkwardness evident. "The worst part was that I had forgotten all about that incident, until after I died, and I found myself pulled to that bar. One of those losers was telling his loser buddies about robbing me, and how I was just laying there in the floor, completely passed out…"
"With your underwear on your head," Claude added.
"UGH. I really hate you," Phoebus grumbled.
"I would pick a fight with you, if I didn't have better things to do. You are making me think, Phoebus. If I can haunt places because other people have memories of me there…"
Claude found himself moving again. As much as he disliked being pulled around, he supposed that he should be grateful for the fact that he was being removed from the dungeon.
He was watching two people—one leading the donkey upon which the other one was riding—walk through what appeared to be the remains of a makeshift camp. Wood and cloth lay scattered about, blackened from flame, some of them still smoldering. The smell of burnt wood hung heavy in the air, forever branded into memory.
The person on the ground turned to the one on the donkey, and asked "Do you remember this place?"
"No," said the person on the donkey. Claude recognized the voice immediately.
"Es? It's me, your husband. I'm back." Even as a ghost, emotions were choking his voice. "I love—I love you."
"Am I supposed to remember this place?" Her words were addressing the physical person beside her, not the phantom floating in the background.
"ESMERALDA! Please!" the ghost wailed, even making the mistake of attempting to wave his nonexistent arms. It was of no use; she obviously could not see or hear him.
"You were just sixteen months old at that time, but I had still hoped that you would remember," Clopin confessed. "You were so terrified. Our home burned to the ground here, remember?"
"No, I don't."
"I do." Clopin swallowed. "I was seven. Your precious minister was relatively new to his job, but even at my young age I could see that he was much, much worse than his predecessor had been. The way my parents spoke about him, and about the good old days when they could run free and do whatever they wanted."
E's expression hardened. "If you brought me here to complain about my husband, you are wasting your time. There is no use beating a dead horse—or a dead man, for that matter."
"Just hear me out!" Clopin shouted. Ignoring his sister's dull glare, he continued. "Your husband was making another 'flush', as he called them. Everyone was screaming and running, our whole area of the slum section of Paris was on fire. Our parents hid me and told me not to stir, nor make a sound…"
Claude realized that he was here as a figment of Clopin's memory. In this memory, flames were so large that they obscured the sky. Claude heard his own voice, ten times louder than usual, shouting orders to his men. He realized that he was experiencing this through the eyes of a terrified seven-year-old.
It was then that 7-year-old Clopin saw something that nearly made his heart stop beating: his struggling baby sister, with a soldier dragging her roughly across the dirt. Fear and anger kicked in; Clopin grabbed a burning stick from the wreckage and charged at the soldier, stabbing him in the back of the knee between his armor plating. The soldier screamed and dropped the little girl. Clopin grabbed his sister, terror lending strength to his arms as he lifted her and whisked her away. The two of them cowered under a pile of smoldering wreckage, Clopin keeping both hands firmly clamped over his sister's mouth so that she could not scream and betray their hiding place.
The minister's horrifying voice thundered forth again. "You let one get away?"
"It was just a little kid," the unfortunate soldier protested. "Couldn't have been more than three years old."
"Find it and bring it back," Claude heard himself snarling. "And maybe I will mercifully overlook your blunder."
The terrified soldier disappeared into the burning wreckage; the minister and the rest of the crew eventually rode off without him. A long line of prisoners, their hands all chained together, trudged along behind the soldiers.
Ghost Frollo would have been shaking in his boots, if he had boots. He hadn't been prepared for how goddamn horrifying he would have been to a seven-year-old. "This must be what haunting feels like," he said to no one in particular.
The flames were gone; the soldiers were gone; Clopin's reverie was over.
"That soldier never showed back up," Clopin explained. "Either he ran away, or he perished in the flames. I didn't care to go see what happened to him, and I don't think Frollo did either."
"Why would I care about a useless minion who was bested by a 7-year-old?" the ghost observed aloud, though neither human heard him.
"I don't remember anything," Es deadpanned. "Too long ago. I'm sorry."
"Well, I remember!" Clopin shouted. "And I risked my life to rescue you from that fiend, you understand? Who knows what he would have done with you?"
"I would have dropped her off at an orphanage for the nuns to raise, of course," the ghost objected. "What did you think I was going to do with her? She was obviously much too young for forced labor. Like I did with those other immigrants I arrested."
"Clopin, you've got to understand!" Esmeralda wailed. "He changed! And he really loved me!"
"Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight," Clopin growled. "More like he got distracted from knocking us down because he was too busy getting you knocked up."
Es gasped. Clopin ignored the interruption. "Yes, I know. Quasimodo told me. Before long, everyone will know. And what will you do then?"
Esmeralda slumped on the horse, tears trickling down her face. "Please just take me home," she whimpered. "I'm so exhausted. I just want to sleep."
