by Willow Rose
“Okay … I guess …” I mumbled.
Mick looked at me. Then he leaned toward me and whispered: “All you have to do is show up and say I do at the right moment.”
I smiled. It felt good to have finally made the decision, to set the date. I wanted this. I had said yes to marry Mick and it was time to follow through with my promise. As we ate the rest of the food together in the garden, I enjoyed listening to Mick as he explained just how he had planned for the wedding. I discovered that I felt a new feeling. For the first time I was looking forward to becoming his wife. I didn’t even think about the spectacle that I would have to star in soon.
Chapter 6
At the dinner table in Hornam Hall that same night, I realized just how big a show this was going to be. We had barely finished the main course before Headmaster Salathiel got up and silenced everyone by lifting his glass high, something he would normally only do when we welcomed new students at the school.
“Today we are celebrating the love between two students at The Academy,” he said with a big smile while looking in my direction. Oh no, I thought while my stomach turned to knots. Not this, anything but this. I felt my whole face blush and I shrank in size while trying to avoid the eyes of everybody in the hall, the happy and anticipating faces. “Today Mick and Meghan have decided on a date for their wedding.”
Salathiel had barely finished the sentence before the crowd burst into a loud cheer, which made me shrink even more. I don’t know what I had imagined, maybe a quiet little ceremony for us and our friends, but as people clapped and cheered out our names, I realized that this was not how this was going to be. This was, in fact, going to involve the whole school.
“The wedding will be held this Saturday,” Salathiel finally said. “It will take place in the Phoenix Garden.”
I stared at Mick. “Is this true?” He nodded with a secretive smile. I was impressed. Normally the Phoenix Garden was closed to students. No one I knew had ever been in there. I had heard stories about it, about how the phoenixes lived there and how their colors were like something we had never seen. The phoenixes supposedly were like huge eagles with feathers of pure gold. They could live for more than a thousand years before they would turn to ashes from which a new young baby phoenix would arise. They needed peace and quiet and therefore no students were allowed in there. Not until now, that was. How Mick had pulled this off, I had no idea, but I was really impressed. Slowly I let go of all my concerns. Maybe it wasn’t that bad after all to have the whole school at my wedding. It was going to be beautiful beyond what I could ever dream of. If only Jason could be there, I caught myself thinking. I looked anxiously at Mick as if he could somehow hear my thoughts. Then I shook my head slowly as if I could somehow shake the thought out of me and make it go away.
“I miss you already …”
“Me too.”
“I could stay …” Mick said with a smile. We were standing outside of my dormitory. It was late. Dinner had lasted for hours since everybody wanted to congratulate us and Mick had treated the whole school with delicacies and champagne until we were stuffed. In the end a few had even started dancing. That was when we left.
“Mmm …” I held him close to me, and was just enjoying the moment. I wanted it to last forever. I was happy and in love.
We were both quiet for a long time. Just the sound of my heart hammering, the broken rhythm of our breathing close to one another. The whispering lips when we kissed. When our lips melted together and became one. The shiver when the fluid of our bodies touched.
“I have to go,” Mick finally said and pushed his body free of mine. He was restraining himself again, I could tell.
“Always the gentleman,” I said while smiling.
He bowed elegantly. I laughed. Then he grabbed my hand and kissed it. I tilted my head and grabbed his hand as he tried to let go of mine. Then I pulled him close and kissed him. Intensely, passionately.
“Saturday,” he whispered as I let him go. He started flying backward down the corridor. “Look what you do to me,” he yelled with laughter. “I can’t even fly straight. I am completely woozy from your wonderful kiss.”
I laughed too. “Better get used to it.”
He stopped and gave me a look and a let out a sigh filled with relief and pride. Then he smiled and bowed before he oozed through the brick wall.
The ceremony for handing out our healing assignments took place in the library of the castle. All the third-year students were present, as were our teachers and both Salathiel and Rahmiel. Trumpets sounded as we entered and our names were announced. I approached the podium as I heard my name called out and smiled at Salathiel when he handed me a folder.
“Here you go, Meghan. Good luck to you,” he said.
I took it and went to sit among the rest of my class. Mick said he had to be excused and couldn’t make it to the ceremony or be with me in class today. He had something to do on earth. I didn’t ask for the details but enjoyed being on my own for awhile.
Abhik had already gotten his assignment and opened it. I wanted to wait until I was alone and could concentrate. I wasn’t that eager to get on with this just yet. To me it was just something that needed to be done.
Eventually curiosity got the better of me as I realized everybody else had their nose stuck in their folder after they left the podium. So I opened mine. A picture of a woman met me on the first page. My first thought was that I had seen her somewhere before, but I had no idea where. Was it someone I had known on earth?
Then Salathiel spoke and I raised my head from the folder. “Each of you has now received a person. That person is human and still living on earth. The nature of your assignment is described in the folder. It is an ongoing assignment that for most of you will not be finished until just before your graduation. So please take your time and get to know these people. Figure out their stories and you will know why you have been chosen for this job. Good luck, everybody.”
I stared at the woman again. She seemed to be in her mid-forties. Her hair was dark brown and seemed neglected. She was not wearing makeup but she was crying, and it made me feel really sad. I turned the page and read the description of my project.
I felt Abhik’s eyes on me. “So what is your assignment?” he asked.
I shook my head. I didn’t quite know what to think of this. “Some American woman that I apparently am supposed to help get over to the other side when she dies,” I answered. “As far as I can see, all I have to do is to make sure she gets on the steamboat and to the castle. I guess I need to guide her there.”
I had tried that once before, with Mick. In the first year, he showed me how we as spirits should be there to greet the person’s spirit as they left the body and help hold the evil spirits, the Se’irims, away from them. We had guided a woman toward the light and into Heaven where everybody goes first, before it is decided if they are to go directly to the school or back to earth.
“That sounds pretty easy,” Abhik said, surprised.
“I guess I lucked out. What did you get?”
Abhik sighed. “A child in Uganda.” He showed me the picture of a small child no more than four years old. Her big brown eyes stared back at me. “She has AIDS and will die soon from a severe case of pneumonia.”
“So you need to help her get to the other side like me?”
He shook his head. “I have to decide whether she will live or die. They have given me the permission to try to heal her. But only if I want to, it says.”
I swallowed hard. Abhik had gotten really amazing at healing during the past year. That was truly his gift. A few times the Angels had asked him to go to people on earth and heal them and he had done so with great success.
“That’s strange,” I said. “Why wouldn’t you want to heal her?”
Abhik looked at me. “I have no idea. I would love to save her and give her the possibility of living her life on earth.”
I nodded. I didn’t think these assignments were that hard. It was pr
etty obvious what we were supposed to do. And I was happy for Abhik because he himself had a difficult and short life on earth, being sick from cancer. Now he got to give that little girl what he never got—healing and a second chance. That was really great.
“So what do we do now?” he asked. “I can’t heal her until just before we graduate. It says so in the papers.”
“I guess we visit them on earth when we have the time, and get to know them just like Salathiel told us to.”
Mick and I had become more popular than ever before. Everybody in the school looked forward to the wedding and being allowed into the sacred Phoenix Garden. As I headed back to my dormitory with my folder in my hand, Myrna, one of the school librarians, said it was the biggest social event ever at the school. “Nothing like this has never happened at our school, not in the four hundred years I have been here.” It seemed impossible for her to stand still, almost jumpy and squeaky when she spoke. “Everybody is so happy for you two. You make a beautiful couple.”
“Thank you,” I said and was about to move on when she stopped me. “I mean we nearly had a big event just like it, when Mick nearly married that Russian girl. When was it again? Fifty years ago? I don’t recall. My memory is not what it used to be. All those years to keep track off. But it was something like that.”
My heart froze. “You mean to tell me that Mick almost married another girl fifty years ago?”
Myrna looked surprised. “Oh, he didn’t tell you about that? I am very sorry, my dear, I really shouldn’t have … I’d better leave now.”
I grabbed her arm as she was about to leave. “Now you have started it, please tell me.”
She sighed. “Well … Mick and the Russian girl, what was her name? Nadja, that is it … they were engaged to be married just like you and him. Come to think of it … it was supposed to take place in the Phoenix Garden as well, just like yours. Now isn’t that something? Well I guess Mick thought that since he had been through it before, he knew how he wanted it, if you know what I mean. Now, come to think of it, you kind of remind me of her. She had that same dark brown hair and your eyes look just like hers as well. Now, isn’t that funny?”
I really didn’t think it was. “But what happened? Why didn’t they get married?”
“Oh dear,” Myrna said. “It was most unfortunate. She called it off just two days before. Reckon she didn’t want to get married after all, that girl.”
I was shocked. “What about Mick?”
Myrna tilted her head. “What do you mean, dear?”
“What happened to him?”
She smiled a compassionate smile. “Well. For a long time we didn’t eat anything else but porridge, I can tell you that much. And the water he served with it was as salty as if we had been drinking the tears from his own eyes.” Myrna shook her head heavily. “It was a sad time for all of us in the school. That is why it is especially exciting that he gets a second chance now.”
“What happened to the girl?”
“She wasn’t very popular after that, I can tell you that. But eventually she graduated and I have heard that she found some other bloke she is living with now in Heaven. Can’t figure why she didn’t want our Mick instead, though.”
I left Myrna in the corridor and flew to my dormitory feeling poorly. So Mick had been stood up at his wedding fifty years ago. Could that be why he was in such a hurry to get it over with? Maybe he was afraid that if I had too much time to think, then I would also regret my decision?
Whatever he felt, it had to be tough going through that back then. I kept wondering what it could have done to him. But it also made me closer to him somehow—made me understand him better. It certainly explained his jealousy and his desire to possess me. I didn’t really want an exact replica of the wedding he would have had with another woman, but I decided to leave it alone. After all, I didn’t care much about the wedding itself. But I did wonder why Mick hadn’t told me this story himself.
With Mick’s past in my head I entered the dormitory where I found my classmates sitting in the common room by the fireplace. As I entered, they all went quiet. Uh-oh, I thought. Have I done something wrong? Was it something I said? Maybe they heard the story too, Was that it? By their looks it was definitely serious.
“So …” I said. “Is everybody happy about their assignments?”
Abhik got up from his chair and came closer to me. He had a worried look on his face that was very unlike him. He stood in front of me and reached his hand out to touch my shoulder. “You’d better sit down.”
“Anything wrong?” I stuttered insecure, as I did like he had told me to. I looked at my friends faces. “Acacia? Mai? What is going on?”
No one seemed to want to even look at me.
“Mai has something she needs to tell you,” said Abhik.
I looked at her. Once, during the first year, Mai had been really mean to me, when she was friends with Portia, but ever since Portia had left the school Mai had been really nice to me, especially last year. Now I was suddenly a little afraid of her again. But this time it was more of what she was about to tell me. What could be so horrible?
“If it is about Mick and that Russian girl Nadja, I already know it,” I said, but I also knew that this wasn’t it. This was something else.
“That is not it,” Abhik said. He sat in a chair next to me and held my hand. “First we weren’t sure if we were going to tell you about this or not …” He stopped and looked at the others. “But I think we can all agree that you need to know it. You will figure it out anyway soon.”
“You are killing me here,” I said. “Just tell me what it is. Is it something with Mick?”
Mai leaned forward in the chair. “It is not about Mick.”
“Then what is it?”
Abhik sighed and held my hand. “Meghan.” He looked into my eyes, while my stomach turned to knots. “It is Jason.”
Chapter 7
“What about him?” I asked with a slight shiver to my voice. I felt frozen. It had been a long time since someone had mentioned that name to me.
Abhik looked at Mai as if he wanted her to tell. Mai looked at him in the same way.
“Could someone just tell me?” I asked.
“Mai, you know more about it than I do,” said Abhik.
Mai cleared her throat. “Well, it is only rumor so far, but I heard from someone I know in another class, and he told me that some girl got Jason as her assignment.”
My heart pounded in my chest. “Someone got him as their assignment? What does that mean? He’s clean now and living a good life; he has a great future ahead of him.”
Mai looked at me like she felt sorry for having to tell me this. “Well, not exactly …”
Abhik took over. “The thing is, that as far as we have heard … he … is coming here.”
My eyes were widened as I stared at both of them. “He is coming here? He is going to die?”
“I am afraid so,” Abhik said.
The room seemed to be spinning around me. I couldn’t figure out what was up and down. Part of me was sad that he was going to die, since he had finally gotten his life back, but another part of me was thrilled to be able to see him again. I felt so confused. When he arrived I would be … I would be married to Mick.
“Now before you do something hasty, just try to stay calm,” Abhik said with a calm hand on mine. “Don’t forget that you are about to marry Mick, and he is your future now.”
I sighed deeply. Abhik was right. It was important not to get carried away and let my emotions run wild. I had made a commitment.
“You’re right,” I said. “This doesn’t change anything. It has been years since we last saw each other, since he has been able to see me. I probably don’t mean anything to him anymore.”
“A lot of years have passed on earth,” Abhik continued. “It is two years since you went to see him in his house on earth. Two years in the Spiritual Realm that is.”
I nodded heavily. I knew what he was saying.
“That is six years on earth,” I said.
“Exactly. A lot can happen to a boy in six years. He has become a man.”
“He won’t even remember me, will he?” I asked.
Mai shook her head. Acacia sat quietly next to her. She hadn’t uttered one word in this conversation.
“Probably not. Most people don’t,” Mai said.
“But Jackline remembered her sister,” I said. “She told me so one night. And I do remember that I had parents who loved me, and I can even recall my father’s face. So we do remember some stuff and people even if it is only a tiny bit. Maybe Jason will remember me or at least that he had known someone like me. Maybe he will recall some of the time we spend together. It was, after all, quite life changing for him. Maybe he will remember that night I saved him from his step-dad.”
I felt Abhik’s hand on my shoulder. “This is exactly what I feared would happen to you, when you heard this. You can’t do that to yourself again. Jason is a closed chapter. You have to move on now. Don’t ruin what you have going for you. Don’t even think about Jason for one second. It will destroy what you have with Mick.”
I sighed deeply once again. My friends were right. I knew they were, but how was I supposed to explain that to my heart?
Of course, Jason was on my mind the rest of the day. I spent lunch break on my bed. I told my friends I wanted to look through my folder and read my assignment again, but I was only buying myself some time alone. Meanwhile I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling while picturing Jason walking around in the corridors of the castle, eating in Hornam Hall, attending classes and flying over the castle. How was I supposed to do this? How was I supposed to see him every day and never talk to him? Never think of him? I hadn’t the faintest idea. Really. But I just knew that I had to do it.
After lunch I entered Professor Grangé’s class physically but emotionally I was somewhere completely different. The professor talked nonstop like always. He held his head under his right arm. I did my best to focus and concentrate on his words. And little by little I managed to get my mind off Jason.
