by Willow Rose
“I see what you mean.”
“I can protect him from accidents and other stuff, but I can’t get him out of that mess. He still can’t hear a thing I’m saying and I can’t even touch him. I really miss him, you know?”
Abhik nodded. He stared out in the open air.
“You are tired of me talking about him, aren’t you?” I asked.
He looked at me again. “No, no. I was the one who asked you about him.”
“Then what is it? I can tell that there is something wrong.”
Abhik sighed. “It is just … I just hope you won’t forget to live your life up here. There is a whole world for you here and it seems to me that you are missing out on a lot because you are always down there. Even when you are at the school, your mind and heart is still with him on earth.”
I nodded. It was hard to hear it, but he was absolutely right. I knew he was. We had a fun semester ahead of us, and I wasn’t even excited. All I could ever think about was Jason. All I ever talked about was him.
“I just feel like he needs me right now,” I said. “I know in my heart that if I keep visiting him, one day he will return to me. It will happen one day. I just know it. It’s hard to explain; I just know it.”
Abhik smiled. “Well, if that is the way you feel, then I will be there for you. I will even continue to listen to all your talk about your precious Jason. About his hair, about his eyes, about the kiss you once shared,” he said and got up. He stood in front of me on the fluffy cloud.
“I don’t talk that much about him, do I?”
Abhik looked at me like I was a raving lunatic. “I’ll race you back to the castle,” he said.
That Thursday our history class was followed by a new class. The Art of Healing was taught by Raphael the Archangel. I had really been looking forward to this class because I was certain I would be able to use some of this on Jason. My dream was to be able to heal him from his addiction.
Like the other Angels I had met in this school, Raphael was three times the size of a human. He was dressed all in white and when he appeared through the door his brightness lit up the whole room. I felt small and insignificant in his presence.
He smiled at us all while we just stared back at him. He was stunning. All the Angels were beautiful, but Raphael was way beyond anything I had ever seen. Even his movements were graceful.
“It is my job to teach you about the healing power you possess as a spirit. Last year you learned much about your own bodies: how you can go through doors, walls, and glass, and how you can fly through the air. So now it is time to learn a little about what you can do for others.”
To nobody’s surprise, Nigel’s hand was first into the air.
“Yes, Nigel?”
“Is it true that you bound the demon Azazel under the desert of Egypt and covered him with darkness?”
Raphael smiled and laughed. Then he spoke in his deep reassuring voice.
“Well, yes Nigel. That happened many years ago.”
“But is he still there?”
Raphael nodded. “He will stay there until judgment day comes.”
“Wow,” Nigel said with big eyes.
The rest of the class looked impressed as well. Whether it was the story or Raphael’s beauty that stunned us, I don’t know. But we were spellbound for hours while he spoke.
“The first thing you need to know is that a happy heart is the best medicine. A cheerful mind brings healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones,” he said.
Nigel put his hand up again.
“Yes, Nigel?”
“Will we be able to heal people the way Jesus did?”
Raphael cleared his throat. “Well, you might.”
“What does that mean?”
“Jesus healed people and took their sickness. So can you, in theory. But I have to be honest and tell you, only a few of you will ever get that good.”
Nigel made a disappointed sound.
“What you need to understand, children, is that sickness comes from Satan. He is sickness.”
I turned my head and looked at Abhik. Since he had been sick with cancer all of his life on earth, this had to be hard for him to hear. But he didn’t seem sad. On the contrary he seemed enlightened.
“So what you are saying is that when people on earth get sick, it isn’t God trying to punish them for something?” Abhik said without putting his hand up.
My heart stopped. Was that what Abhik had thought all this time? That God had been punishing him?
Raphael stared at him with compassion in his eyes.
“God would never do that. Why should he do that? You are all his children. We are all his children,” he said.
Abhik’s expression changed. He seemed hurt. Raphael saw it and approached him.
“So now you wonder: ‘Why didn’t he heal me?’ Right?”
Abhik didn’t say anything. He just nodded quietly.
“Well even I don’t have the answer for that,” Raphael said. “Sometimes he gives healing; sometimes he gives the strength to go through it.”
“But I didn’t … ” Abhik said. His voice was a little shaky now. “I didn’t go through it. I died.”
“Yes, you did, and you are here now. And you have eternity ahead of you. Heaven is about to open its gates for you. Once you get there, there is nowhere else you would rather be. And since you went through such a tough life on earth I imagine you will spend eternity trying to help sick people on earth get their healing. Am I right?”
Abhik looked at Raphael with his big wide brown eyes.
“How did you know that?”
“I am an Angel, remember?”
The whole class burst into laughter. Abhik smiled as well. I was happy that he finally got some answers to all the questions I knew he had.
Raphael’s class turned out to be both exciting and fun, but also hard work. This first day we had a lot of theory about human nature and how humans had to believe and pray for healing before we as spirits could be allowed to help them.
“Humans always try to figure everything out, things that are beyond their level of understanding. And in reality, those we can help are the ones who rely on God and trust him to solve their problems. We can’t get through to an unbeliever. It is that simple. ”
I took notes on what Raphael said. When I was done I stared at my notes for a few seconds. So it didn’t matter how much I learned at the school about healing a drug addict. If Jason didn’t ask God to release him from it, and believe that God would do so, then I couldn’t help him.
I raised my hand. “So it’s not that God doesn’t want to heal people when they are not healed. It’s because their lack of trust and faith make it impossible for us to help them. Is that it?” I asked.
Raphael smiled at me. “Not exactly. While it is up to God who gets healed and who he gives the strength to go through it, we all make hundreds of choices every day. You choose what to eat, what to say, what to do. And believing God for healing is a choice humans have to make. And that can be very hard for them. They don’t know what we know. They don’t know that Heaven and the Spiritual Realm are real. So they doubt.”
I vaguely remembered my own doubt. As a child I had no problem believing in God and Heaven and all, but as I grew older I remembered the questions that would come into my head and make me wonder if it all was just something that was made up. Like Santa Claus.
All of a sudden I remembered something else from my childhood. A vision came to me and flashed before my eyes. I was a little girl praying on my knees in my bedroom. What was I praying for? I remembered the feeling of total desperation, of wanting God to help me so badly, to have him heal my dad. Had my dad been seriously ill? In the next second I remembered he had been in the hospital with a burst appendix. The doctors hadn’t known if he was going to make it or not, but he did.
Ever since I had come to The Academy I hadn’t been able to remember my parents. I knew I had them and that I loved them a lot, but I couldn’t recall their
faces or even name the city where I grew up. I had been dreaming about them and about them looking for me. Sometimes I even felt like I could hear my mother desperately calling for me. My fear was that they didn’t know I was dead.
Now for the first time I managed to recall a face. My dad’s face. He was lying in a hospital bed smiling at me. It made me so happy inside. So relieved. I longed to see that smile again.
Chapter 3
Mick stepped into my room with one graceful move through the brick wall. His blond hair was slicked back and his blue eyes were shining like he was excited about something. He looked really cute as always as he cast his glance at me, staring up and down my body looking like he could devour me in one second, causing my heart to stop beating.
He still managed to do that to me. We had only kissed once and shared a dance at the ball. Since then we had decided to remain friends. And it had been a success all summer. He wasn’t a student at The Academy; he worked in the kitchen, so we could only see each other when I wasn’t in class. And ever since school had started again I hadn’t had any time for him.
“What are you doing here?” I asked with a smile. I was really happy to see him, but if he came to be with me, I knew I had to disappoint him.
“What do you mean what am I doing here? I came to see you. I have not seen you all week, so I thought we could spend some time together. Maybe go to the show or something. Third-year students are doing a show in the old theater. I have heard it is really astounding.”
I loved his old-fashioned way of talking. It was so cute.
“That is so sweet, and I would really love to, but I am afraid—”
In that second it was like someone had switched off the light in his eyes.
“You are on your way out … to see him.”
I sighed. I had disappointed him a couple of times lately and even stood him up one time as well. I wasn’t pleased with myself. I just felt obligated to Jason, like I had a responsibility.
“I have to. You know I do,” I said.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you have to go? Why can he not just take care of himself for one night and you come and have some fun instead? Do you even remember what it is like to enjoy your life?”
“You know he can’t take care of himself. Yesterday I had to stop a car that almost hit him. He didn’t see it because he was so stoned.”
“So what? He has chosen to live like that. So what if he dies. He would be better off dead if you ask me.”
“I’m afraid that he will die angry and bitter and that he will not come here.”
Mick sighed and sat on my bed. “We don’t know who goes where.”
“No, but his heart is all closed and he has that shield around him, the shield of anger. I’m afraid that Satan has him under his control with this addiction. What if we have lost him and he goes to the dark side?”
Mick nodded quietly. “Well, you are right. He is under the influence by evil and we cannot reach him. But I am not so sure that going to visit him all the time will make a difference.”
“I know it will. I know that I can get through to him some day.”
“And when do you suppose that day will be? In ten years? Fifteen?”
“I don’t care when. As long as it happens.”
“But then you will have wasted ten years of your own life up here. This is the Afterlife. You are supposed to have fun and enjoy your life.”
I sat down next to him. He grabbed my hand. It felt nice to have someone touch me again. I missed that.
“I know what you are saying,” I said and looked into his blue sparkling eyes. “But my heart feels so guilty. I am the one who put him where he is, remember?”
Mick shook his head. ”No! Don’t you ever think that. He chose to let the drugs into his life even though he knew they would end up controlling him. That is a choice he made. No one forced him to do it.”
“But that’s only because of the anger he is feeling inside. If he hadn’t been treated badly by his step-dad, if his mother hadn’t pulled that trigger and gone to jail, then Jason wouldn’t be so angry. Then he wouldn’t have needed the drugs.”
“That is a lot of ‘ifs,’ ” Mick said with a gentle smile. “You can’t take the blame for everything. Those people all made their own choices.”
He was right. I knew he was. I just couldn’t help myself. I wanted so badly to be close to Jason. Even though it had been three months (which was a year on earth) since we had last spoken, I couldn’t help but still love him. In my view, love wasn’t something you could just turn off because the other part wasn’t available any longer, because he was too sick to be able to see me. I just couldn’t do that.
I got up from the bed and pulled my hand out of Mick’s. “I’m sorry.”
He sighed deeply while looking at me with disappointment in his eyes. “You are going anyway, are you not? There is nothing I can say or do to make you stay and spend the evening with me?”
I started floating toward the window. I still hadn’t learned how to go through massive brick walls yet, so I preferred the window. I looked back at Mick. He forced a smile. It was brutal.
“Well then have a nice trip,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“See you in the morning?” he asked.
“Sure. Maybe during breakfast just before class?”
He sighed and nodded. Then he got up from the bed and came closer to me. I felt my breathing getting heavier. How I missed being close to someone. He took my hand and kissed it.
“Even if that is all I am going to get, then it will be my pleasure,” he said and bowed.
I spend an eventless night with Jason talking to him while he begged for money in the streets of New York where he was living now, since he became homeless. And as usual I came back just in time for breakfast in the magnificent Hornam Hall. As with the rest of the castle, it was all dressed in white marble with burning torches hanging on the walls. I loved coming there every morning, feeling the atmosphere of spirits chattering, eating, and laughing. It seemed to me that everybody was always so cheerful at The Academy—old people as well as the young ones. They were carefree and happy. The old people always rushed through the air laughing out loud, relieved that they could move their bodies again after years of being in an aging immobile body. The middle-aged people chatted and ate big piles of food, being all happy that they didn’t have to worry about calories anymore. And the kids … well they were just being kids. Laughing, teasing each other and throwing food around when no teacher saw it. But they were all very happy every day. Everyone except for me. Maybe Mick was right that I was wasting what was supposed to be a great time.
But somehow it was hard for me to leave the earth and the humans behind. I didn’t understand why life on earth had to be so tough on people. Why wouldn’t God just make Jason well again? I knew Raphael had told me that if Jason didn’t ask for help, it probably wouldn’t happen. But eventually I made up my own theory. I was beginning to think that God was there even when people didn’t believe in him—like me. I was there even though Jason had forgotten about me. I was still looking out for him, because I loved him. And if God was love then he wouldn’t abandon Jason just because he didn’t ask for help. He would send someone like me to watch over him. He would put it on my heart. And maybe God couldn’t help Jason because Jason didn’t want to be helped. He didn’t realize that he was in a bad situation because the drugs were controlling him, telling him that all he needed was the next fix to get by.
Well, that was just my theory anyway. And I kind of liked it. It made me feel like I was doing something good. Like I was sent by God to help Jason.
“Tough night?”
I lifted my head. It was Mick. I smiled, happy to see him. He could always make me feel better after a night spend so close to human despair.
“It was okay. Nothing much. Just the same misery,” I said.
Mick sat next to me and looked at my plate. “You haven’t
touched your food.”
Just as he said that a boy from the third year approached me. “Hey, are you that girl that fought that Se’irim and made her go straight to hell?”
I sighed and looked at Mick.
“Word gets around here fast,” he said. “People have been talking about what happened to Portia.”
I looked at the guy in front of me. Then I nodded. “Yes, I am. But she wasn’t an evil spirit to begin with.”
The boy’s eyes grew wide. “So you have actually stood face to face with a real Se’irim?”
“Yes. Twice actually,” I replied.
“That is so cool. What are they like?”
“Kind of creepy. Meeting them sort of makes your insides freeze.”
“I have heard that they suck all joy and love out of people. That they make you feel empty on the inside and filled with guilt. Is that true?”
“Yes … ” That was the way I had felt when I stood in front of Portia the second before Salathiel had opened the ground under her and she was sucked into the deep darkness. And also the time when Jason’s step-dad died and went into what looked like a giant volcano. Remembering all this made me uncomfortable. Mick saw it.
The boy continued, “So tell me more, what did they look like—”
“Listen up. Talking about it makes her uncomfortable. So save it,” Mick said. “We were talking privately here.”
The boy got up from the chair. “All right. All right. There is no reason to be unpleasant. I was just making conversation.”
“So were we,” said Mick.
“Thanks,” I said when the boy was gone.
“No problem. But you might have to get used to this kind of attention. I think you are the first student ever to have fought a Se’irim or evil spirit. Most people never meet them. Those who do encounter one are often drawn by their lies and choose to follow them, but you managed to fight them off several times when they attacked your mind and that is pretty unique. That makes you kind of a celebrity around here.”
