Courageous: Afterlife Book Four

by Willow Rose

  "Do you remember what I used to call him?" I asked.

  "Of course. How can I forget? You spoke of him constantly. It was always Mick this and Mick that."

  CHAPTER 20

  I STARED AT my mother's lips as they moved. She was still speaking but I wasn't listening any longer. All I could think about was her last sentence. She was smiling and gesticulating widely while telling funny episodes from my childhood.

  I grabbed her hand and held it in mine. "Mom, I have to go," I said. I the room was closing in on me, like I was about to suffocate and I needed to get out. Right now. I didn't tell her that. She looked disappointed.

  "I have to get back," I said.

  "Will I see you again?"

  I smiled and hugged her. "Of course. Just don't tell anyone. Mostly for your own sake. People will think you've lost it."

  She nodded agreeing. Then she sniffled. "I'm so glad you came," she said.

  "Me too." I hugged her again.

  I got up from the bed and looked at her once last time. She grabbed my hand just as I was about to leave her.

  "Promise me you'll come back."

  I smiled again. "I will."

  She let go of my hand with a relieved smile. I turned my back at her, and then streamed myself through the wall.

  I didn't tell Abhik anything on our way back, not even the fact that I had accidentally shown myself to my mother. I wanted to digest everything before I talked about it to anyone. It was all a lot to take in at once.

  "You're so quiet," Abhik said when we were above the clouds.

  "Well it was hard to see them again, especially like this," I said with heavy heart. "Especially when they are not doing well. It's hard, you know?"

  "Are you sorry we went there? I wanted to cheer you up, not put you down," Abhik said.

  "I know. You always want the best for me. It was great, really. I am really happy that we did it. It's just a lot, you know?"

  Abhik nodded. "I know. It was hard on me too. I went to see my parents right after graduation. It was good though to do it. It was nice to see that they had moved on even if they missed me a lot. The hard part was the visit to my oldest sister. She wasn't doing very well. I have been thinking about trying to help her ever since. I just don't know how to do it."

  "Well sometimes people need to find their own way out of the darkness, right?" I said. "We can help them to be courageous but they have to do the fighting themselves."

  Abhik nodded. "I guess you're right. Maybe I'll just need to let her go. Like you had to let go of Jason and let him fight his own struggle."

  "Precisely. I almost wore myself out trying to save him but the fact was that this was the life Jason chose for himself and I couldn't do much about it."

  We reached the castle beneath us and began descending. The many white towers appeared through the clouds. Thousands of rainbows framed it from the air. It was a gorgeous sight.

  "I'm staying in one of the guest chambers," Abhik said when we entered the castle and found ourselves in one of the many hallways again.

  He leaned over and kissed my cheek. "Will you be alright with Mick and all?" he asked.

  I nodded. "I'll be fine. He doesn't bite as bad as he barks," I said laughing.

  "Good. But remember. I'm there for you any time of day or night, okay?"

  "I know. You are always so sweet to me," I said.

  "Good night then."

  I grabbed his hand as he was about to leave. I pulled him back till he looked at me.

  "Thank you."

  He smiled his pearly smile. "You're very welcome."

  CHAPTER 21

  IT WAS DARK in our chambers as I entered through the thick wooden door and I thought Mick hadn't come back. Then I spotted some light coming from the corner and looked into Mick’s glowing blue eyes in the darkness. He was sitting in a chair in the corner in silence. I jumped.

  "Mick you scared me!" I said startled.

  "Where have you been?" he asked.

  "Does it matter?"

  "Of course it matters," he growled. "I come back from the kitchen to take care of you and you're not even here? Don't you care that I was scared senseless that something had happened to you?" He threw his arms in the air. "Don't you care about anything anymore?"

  "Well I didn't mean to scare you and I'm fine as you can see," I said dismissive. I wasn't about to get into another fight with him.

  I felt his eyes on me. They were like piercing nails.

  "I asked you a question," he said. "Where have you been and who were you with?"

  I inhaled, exhausted. I didn't need this right now. "Well if you must know, I went to Earth to visit my parents."

  Mick got up from the chair and floated towards me. "You went with that Abhik, didn't you? Didn't I just tell you that I didn't like you seeing him? Didn't I? Answer me!"

  I backed up not caring for the tone to Mick's voice. His eyes became flaming red. His movements were aggressive.

  "Answer me!" he yelled again.

  "You did, but ..."

  "But what?" He was gesticulating wildly and aggressively now. "But ... but ... you just don't care? But you chose to not care about me, about my feelings and just go ahead and do exactly what I told you not to?"

  I felt the anger grow inside of me. I restrained myself, tried to keep calm and speak with composed voice. I wasn't going to play his game. I wasn't going to get upset and aggressive like he was. "Abhik is my friend. You don't get to decide who I'm allowed to be with."

  Mick stormed towards me and I backed up further. "So you just do exactly what you want to now? Just like that, huh? Don't I count for anything in your life anymore? We've only been married a few weeks for crying out loud. Already you're stepping all over me, dishonoring me in front of the entire school? Do you think that's fair to me?"

  That's when I finally lost it. I couldn't hold the anger back any longer. "You know what?" I yelled back. "I am sick of your honor, I'm sick of your pride of all your crap. I'm sick of you manipulating me, of your deceit and lies."

  "I'm not the deceitful one here," he snarled.

  "Oh is that so?" I said. "Well maybe it's my turn to tell a little story. Do you want to know what I found out in my parents’ house? Do you? I think you do. I think it's very interesting. I actually don't think I'm the one who owes you any explanation. I think it's the other way around. I'm sure you'll agree with me in a minute."

  "I don't owe you anything," Mick said.

  "Well I think you do." I pulled out one of the drawings my mother had let me keep. "Can you explain this, Mick? Can you?"

  Mick gasped and took the drawing. Then he looked into my eyes. "Meghan ... I ... I can explain."

  "I really hope you can," I said snorting in anger. "Because I don't seem to understand this at all. This seems to tell me something, Mick, something I find very hard to believe."

  I paused and caught my breath. Mick was staring at me while biting his lip.

  I spoke through gritted teeth. "You knew me, Mick. You knew who I was all along. You knew where I came from all along ... Why? ... Why Mick? Why did you lie to me? All this time we have spent together, all those hours talking, getting to know one another, all those days you heard me cry over not knowing my parents, why didn't you say anything?"

  "I wasn't supposed to, you know that," Mick finally said.

  "But you could have told me after my graduation? There has been plenty of time to tell me, Mick, plenty of hours and days, plenty of opportunities to come clean and tell me that we knew each other."

  Mick lowered his eyes. He nodded slowly. "I know," he said. "The right time just never came, you know?"

  "No. No I don't know, Mick. Because I never keep big secrets like that from people. I never lie to people I love like that."

  Mick sat on the bed. "I'm sorry," he said. "I was afraid of your reaction. I was afraid you'd react just like you are now."

  "I'm only reacting like this because you have been lying to me, because you have kept this
from me for so long." I paused to calm myself down. Then I sat next to him on the bed. "I'm giving you a chance now, Mick. A chance to tell me everything. From the beginning. You were the one who helped me over to the other side, weren’t you?"

  Mick nodded. Then he looked at me. "I was supposed to come get your father too. Back when he had the burst appendix. He was supposed to die. I was assigned to come and get him, to make sure the Se'irims didn't get to him. I went there like I was supposed to and was in the hospital room, when suddenly I was disturbed by something. A small still voice coming from another room. I felt so drawn to it; I went there and saw a little girl on her knees. It was you. You were praying. I heard your prayers in my head and couldn't help myself. I fell in love with you right there. You were so wonderful, so pure and lovely. I realized I couldn't take your father. I wanted to help you; I wanted to answer your prayer. You were crying your heart out to God and that was when I couldn't help it anymore. I wanted badly to comfort you, my heart was broken by your prayer and pleading. I can still remember what you said: 'Please God, please don't take my dad. I'm lost without him.' I began to cry and then I did what I wasn't supposed to. I showed myself to you. I wrapped my arms around you. I hugged you and held you tight. I whispered in your ear that I would save your dad; I was going to heal him, that God had heard your prayer and sent me and that you shouldn't be afraid anymore. Later in the evening when your dad was supposed to die, I healed him instead of taking him with me. I used all my powers and brought him back to life. It drained me completely and it took days before I was able to fly back to the castle. I spent those days with you and I realized I loved you so deeply that I could never let you go again. So I kept visiting as often as I could and we spent many wonderful hours together. I protected you and your family from harm and you and I could just talk for hours and hours. You always made me laugh. You enchanted me. When it was finally your time to die, I was assigned to go and get you as well."

  "That's why you were on the boat with me," I said.

  "Yes. I have loved you ever since you were just a little child and my love has only grown through the years. I am so sorry to have deceived you like this. It was never my intention. I can't blame you if you hate me for it."

  Mick lowered his head. I grabbed his chin and pulled it towards me. I felt the tears piling up behind my eyes.

  "How can I hate you for loving me like that?" I asked. I leaned over and let my lips cover his in a long and gentle kiss.

  CHAPTER 22

  I WOKE UP the next morning with a feeling of emptiness inside. I was happy to have some more answers to my life on Earth and I couldn't help loving Mick even if I still didn't care for his outbursts of anger and his attempt to control me and my every move. I was afraid of the future with him and of how it was going to be like.

  He was still asleep when I got up and floated to the window. The sun was about to rise above the ocean and the gardens beneath me glittered when the sunbeams hit it. It was going to be another beautiful morning. I touched my stomach gently and thought about the baby. Then I glanced at Mick. He was sleeping peacefully, looking angelic with his fair skin and blond hair. He was so beautiful and so perfect in every way. Why did he have to be so jealous? If only he wasn't, then we could be so happy, I thought. He mumbled my name in his sleep. I chuckled. Suddenly he seemed so innocent and I was filled with such a love for him. I couldn't believe he had loved me for this long. He really had waited for me for a long time. No wonder he was afraid of losing me. So many years he had waited and then I just fell for some other guy. It must have been hard on him.

  Slowly he opened his eyes and looked at me. I smiled.

  "You're up early?" he asked.

  "Wouldn't miss the sunrise," I answered.

  He groaned and stretched. Then he got out of bed and floated to me. He put his arms around my back and held me tight while we both watched the sun rise over the water. It was a beautiful and peaceful moment.

  "This is nice," Mick whispered and kissed my neck. "This is how it should always be."

  I smiled and closed my eyes. "I think so too."

  "So why don't we?" Mick asked.

  "Don't we what?"

  "Why don't we let it be like this all the time?"

  I shrugged. "I don't know. I would like it to be this nice always."

  He kissed me again and I felt a shiver through my spine.

  "Let's not fight anymore," he whispered between kisses.

  I turned and grabbed his face. Then I kissed him passionately. I couldn't have loved him more at that moment.

  We stayed in the room all day and just talked. It was wonderful. Just like the old times when we had just met. He told me about the times he had visited me on Earth and I listened carefully trying to fill in the blanks. I hated that there was so much I didn't know, so much that was still blocked from my memories. Most of what he told me, I had no recollection of. I asked him to fill me in, to tell me all he remembered. So he did. Soon I realized that a lot of my life had gone missing from the file, a lot of fond memories that I was supposed to have, and desperately wanted back. Even if Mick told me about them it still seemed like it wasn't me he was talking about, like they belonged to someone else, since I couldn't remember any parts of them. I knew there was only one way to get them back. I had to find the missing pages in my file.

  So the next day I went to Salathiel to tell him about it. His smile lit up the entire room as usual as he greeted me in his office. He sat behind the giant desk and I in the huge chair in front of him feeling like a child who couldn't reach the ground with her feet. I had brought my file that I placed in my lap.

  "So how can I help you today, Meghan?" he asked with his silky voice.

  "Something has happened," I said. "I'm not sure if you can actually help me or if it happened before at the school."

  "Well, let's find out," he said with a more concerned voice.

  "See, it all began when I received my file on graduation day. I went somewhere secluded to open it and that's when I realized something was wrong with it."

  Salathiel leaned backwards. "Something was wrong with it? How so?"

  "Well some parts were missing."

  "Missing? I don't understand?" he said.

  "Here, let me show you," I said and opened my file. "As you can tell, big parts of my memories are completely gone, vanished somehow. The pages are all black. My entire last year is gone and I have no memories from it. Plus a lot of other days have been taken out ... or maybe I was thinking they could just have fallen out? Maybe placed in a wrong file or something?"

  Salathiel shook his head. "Fallen out? No, that's simply not possible. Wrongly placed? No. We keep those files at the school all the time you are here. No one touches them until you're done here and they are handed to you."

  "Then I don't know what could have happened," I said.

  "Black pages in a file are not that rare. It happens from time to time. Maybe something happened to you during your life on Earth," he speculated. "Maybe you hurt your head and had memory loss. Could that be it?"

  "I don't know. I suppose it could have happened. But it begins when I'm just a child and goes on until the last year when everything is missing. It's a long period of time to have memory loss."

  Salathiel cleared his throat. "Maybe you suffered from something that never healed, maybe you hurt your head as a child and that caused your memories to disappear on occasions. It's not unusual, you know."

  "But wouldn't I remember falling or hurting myself?"

  "Hm, maybe but not if it was some sort of disease in your brain causing this. Could you have had a tumor? Maybe you died from it?"

  "I was killed, strangled. You made me an assignment to forgive my killer, remember?"

  "That's right. I forgot. I'm sorry. It's getting increasingly difficult to remember all of our students." Salathiel shook his head and the long white beard dangled. "It has been seen before that people chose to forget certain parts of their life simply because it is too hard t
o remember them, too traumatic. That would explain how it comes and goes."

  "Well, it did begin around the time my dad was terminally ill and I thought I was about to lose him," I said pensively.

  "Well there you go. Your brain has chosen to block out certain events from your life because they are too hard to remember. We call it displacement. Lots of human spirits suffer from it when they come here. Most of the time it comes back to them over time, when their soul is ready to face it again. Then the pages return to the file. You must give it time. Wait and see if they don't turn up eventually. Until then enjoy the memories you have already gotten back. The rest will follow soon enough. Don't you worry anymore about that."

  "Okay, thanks," I said and got up from the chair.

  Salathiel smiled again widely. "My pleasure," he said. "Always a pleasure seeing you."

  "Likewise."

  I left his office feeling quite uplifted. It was after all a simple explanation. The pages were black because something bad had happened during those times and I wasn't ready to face it yet. But I would eventually. That was just the way it was.

  CHAPTER 23

  "YOU CAN'T JUST leave without telling me where you're going."

  Mick was waiting for me in the chambers when I got back from my meeting with Salathiel. "I don't know where you are," he continued. "I don't know who you're with. It scares me, you know?"

  "You weren't here when I decided to go," I said. "You were in the kitchen making lunch for the school, remember?"

  Mick breathed aggressively. His fist was clenched. I could tell he was trying hard to restrain himself. He turned his back at me and hit his palm in the wall. I jumped from the sound. "I need to know when you leave the room. I need to know where you are," he said through gritted teeth. "I am so scared every time I get back here and you are gone. I am so afraid that something really bad has happened to you. I keep imagining all these things ..."