The Purgatory Saga #1: People of the Fire

by Michelle Dalson

  “Aw!” Dewey sighed. “Do we have to leave here so soon?”

  “Yes, this place is so heavenly,” said Grace.

  I looked behind where Truman was having fun splashing around the pool and scaring away all the ducks and waterfowls. I felt like I didn’t want to leave this place either.

  Lara was nodding. “Perhaps just a little while, we can enjoy our time in this place. The Son promised us that He would be back to fetch us when we are ready, so let us enjoy ourselves here!”

  “Yeah,” muttered Jenna. “Purgatory is becoming more and more of a hellhole by the minute!”

  I looked up to the sky. The sun was setting, and the horizon was turning red orange. I followed the stretch of bright light across the sky, and wished I could follow it forever.

  Chapter Twenty-Five-

  For the next few days, we were enjoying the peace and harmony in the Garden. Cain and I suddenly became much closer to each other, and now I could look at the guy and almost consider him as a close friend—which was something that I had never experienced before.

  Dewey and I bonded more strongly, and for the first time, we almost acted like real soul-mates. There was so much to explore in the Garden, and I felt like every step we took would bring us closer to Heaven. I had never felt so giddy in my life.

  Even the angels were surprised and thankful to see me this happy.

  “Oh, good heavens,” sighed Annabelle happily. “I’ve never seen the spirit so energized. He’s never smiled like that, either.”

  One afternoon, Jenna and I were strolling in the woods together. I had to admit that even a spirit like her could be fun to be with, if only she stayed as content as she was up here.

  Jenna gave a calm sigh. “Oh…I wish I could live in this place forever. But we’re not even in Heaven yet! Hmph!” She stopped by a fig tree and looked around. “I’m going to miss this place so much. But after this, I know I’m going to work much harder in Purgatory so that I can go even farther than this.”

  I gave her a wry smile when she mentioned Purgatory. Just hearing about that world was enough to make my spirit want to puke. “How good do you think you’re really doing?”

  She blinked at me. “I’m doing fine! You can ask Enoch. I’m the top student in my classes…”

  “Oh?” I spoke carefully and stepped closer to her. “What caused you to even end up in a stage like that? Why were you sent to Purgatory?” I guess this was the best time to finally ask her this question. She knew everything about my reason for arriving in that forsaken world, so now I wanted to hear her explanation.

  Jenna huffed and glared. Even though it was only a few days since we arrived in Eden, it felt like a long time since I had seen that sharp, piercing scowl on her face. Her hot-pink glasses flashed and she spoke sourly again. “What is it to you?”

  “Well, you know perfectly well why I’m here,” I said with a chuckle. “Everyone seems to know why I came to Purgatory. It’s probably fair if you at least told me why you came to Purgatory.”

  Jenna narrowed her eyes.

  I gave her an indignant look. “I won’t tell anyone, you know.”

  “Oh yeah?” She challenged. “You think I want to trust you, a liar?”

  The warm wind breezed between us and Jenna seemed to calm down. Jenna sighed and her stern eyes softened. “Well….I wasn’t the nicest person when I was still alive. I’ve told you before—I was much worse when I was on Earth. I was…somewhat of a spoiled brat when I was a child.”

  I raised my eyebrows and nodded.

  “My mother died when I was just a year old. My father never married another woman again, since he was a strictly religious Jew and didn’t believe in remarriage. He also loved my mother very much, so he didn’t want to remarry another woman, despite the fact that she had passed away. He was the nicest man you could ever meet—he was a lot like Enoch. He was always loyal to the Lord, and he raised me to be the same.” She paused to look away, and then went on. “He raised me to be the happiest child I could be. In fact, he was a little too lenient with me. He spoiled me all the time. If there was anything I wanted, he would buy it for me.” She gave a small snicker. “You could say I was a daddy’s girl, then. He never punished me for anything—partly because I never got into trouble since he also raised me to be an obedient and honest girl. Hehe…I was very honest and obedient. I may have been spoiled rotten, but I was still the most polite girl on our street in Jerusalem.” She raised her eyes to the sky. “You were born in the year 41,030. I was born about a hundred years before that. But Jerusalem was still very similar to the way it was when the apocalypse arrived. There were huge cities that extended far above the atmosphere of the Earth, and many humans were living in skyscrapers, which were referred to as skyhouses. I was popular in my extensive neighborhood of Jerusalem, and many humans recognized me as the most innocent little girl in the city.” She turned and winked at me. “I was very faithful to the Lord. I prayed every night with my father, and visited my mother’s grave ever morning.”

  “So how’d you become all bratty?” I asked.

  “By the time I was eight, my brother got married and he moved away.”

  “You had a brother?” I winced.

  She nodded. “He’s thirteen years older than me. I barely got to know him when I was little. But after he left our skyhouse, my father started to grow weaker and more lonesome. He was getting old and sick, so he hired a maidservant to care for the house and look after me for most of the time after that. Well, this maidservant was the ugliest, meanest lady I had ever met, excluding Prima Dona.”

  I crossed my arms and gave her a humored look. “Prima Dona is not close to being ugly. You’ve got to admit that.”

  “Well, whatever! Her name was Agnes Hoffred. She treated me like a troll. She took away all my clothes and accessories that my father let me have, and she even got rid of my mother’s treasured belongings that my father gave to me. I was so pissed! I had never experienced what it was like to be…..despoiled. I never even experienced discipline. I reacted very strongly and forgot all about the importance of politeness and self-control.

  “My father died when I was ten. I was stuck with Agnes for another six months, and she hated me so much that sent me away to live with my brother and his wife. But Agnes still had to come with us, for they also hired her as a maidservant since my dad was gone. So she still pissed me off every day, and I was getting worse and worse. I missed my father very much, and it was critical for him to have died and left me with a mean, stingy maidservant. I was angry and miserable every day, and by the time I was a teenager, I started to cause problems for my brother and his wife. I got into arguments very easily after that.”

  I was silent as I listened. Jenna narrowed her eyes at me. “What?!” She hissed. “Why are you staring at me like that? It’s so creepy whenever you’re quiet like that.”

  I chuckled. “I’m just a little surprised. You aren’t much different from me. You were spoiled by your father, but then experienced extreme discipline and abuse by another person. That was very much the same as the way Lucien spoiled me in the mortal life, and then allowed Prima Dona to beat the heck out of me.”

  “Oh, haha,” said Jenna sarcastically. “I was aware of that since the moment I met you. And I’m just glad that Agnes wasn’t my mother or step-mom! That would have made me even worse!”

  “Yeah,” I said quietly, looking down with a narrowed gaze. “And be thankful that you weren’t experiencing the spoiling and mistreatment at the same time. One moment, I would be spoiled rotten, and then the next moment I would be beaten senseless by my own mother. You only had to experience it one at a time.”

  “Yeah…I understand it was much harder for you,” she was giving me a bitter look.

  “And just be thankful neither of your parents were ice witches or devil kings,” I spoke in a low voice without meeting her gaze. Memories of my horrible life on Earth were flooding back to me.

  Jenna raised her expression. “It mu
st have been terrible to live with the real Lucifer and Sarah Madonne…at the same time.”

  I lifted my head and gave her a glare. “Do not ever mention their real names….”

  She blinked and nodded slightly. “Yes—I’m sorry.”

  I looked at her for another moment. The woods were darkening around us and the sky was dimming.

  “I wonder when Jesus is going to come back…” I murmured. “As happy and uplifting this place may be, it will always be so much better with Jesus here.” Honestly, it was so nauseating for me to be around Him. He was the Son of God, and the Messiah. I was the son of Satan, and a terrible sinner. But He loved me, and I could feel it when He had revealed Himself and stuck by my side in this Garden. He understood me more than my parents ever would.

  Jenna sighed and gave a slow blink. She took off her glasses and kept her eyes shut for another second, then opened them, facing me with a serious gaze. In the shadows, I could barely see her face, but with her glasses off, I could notice that her eyes were green and piercing, gazing into me with a hard stare. Her face was pale and thin, with her red hair held back in a long ponytail behind her head. She looked very different without those sharp glasses. She was actually very pretty.

  “He‘ll be back soon,” she said. “As a matter of fact, He‘s here with us right now. The Lord is everywhere, and He is always watching His people.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. I remained silent and looked away, until suddenly, something stirred in the trees.

  Jenna and I looked to our left and from the stream near our ankles, a red snake emerging from the stream. It was slithering toward Jenna’s heels, and its red eyes were glowing in the dark.

  “Watch out!” I cried. I pushed her forwards. The snake hissed and struck my head with its sinking fangs. I yowled at the sudden pain.

  Jenna screamed as she fell on her side. Her glasses had fallen off and she was narrowing her eyes toward me. “Zach! Be careful!”

  I turned around while I kept a hand on the back of my neck as the red snake faced me on the ground. My neck only hurt for a moment, and luckily, it wasn’t bleeding.

  But the red snake was staring at me with malice in its eyes. It started to speak, and I stiffened at the voice of Lucien.

  “Oh, my son, did I strike you?” He chuckled in a sly, evil tone. “I’m sorry, I meant to strike the girl. She’s a much easier target than you are.” He narrowed his eyes and smiled deviously.

  Slowly, Lucien wrapped his way around my body, chuckling and speaking to me with words I could not understand, for I was in a state of fear.

  “Zach…” Jenna was whimpering, and she slowly got up. “I can’t see…” She sounded desperate to help me, but it was dark and her vision was probably nothing but a blur without her glasses.

  Suddenly, someone approached me from behind and grabbed my shoulder. I yowled and flinched with terror, but then calmed down, realizing the hands were too warm to be Prima Dona’s. Immediately, Lucien let out a shocked hiss and loosened his grip on me, and fell to the ground. He thrashed wildly until he suddenly transformed into the tall, dangerous man with a red robe and cape.

  His back was turned toward me, and he was glaring over his shoulder to fix me with a devilish stare. His body was glowing red in the dark shadows.

  The man that had grabbed my shoulder let me go, and then Lucien growled and hurried away into the night.

  After watching him leave, I sighed with relief. The Lord had saved me again. I turned around, expecting to meet the loving eyes of Jesus Christ again, but I flinched when I was facing a dark figure of a man I had never seen before.

  “Wahh! Who are you? You‘re not Jesus…” I narrowed my eyes to get a better look.

  Then the man lifted up a lantern to his face and revealed his stern gaze. He didn’t answer. He remained silent as he faced me with his hardening stare. The hair on his head was dark brown, as well as his long beard. He was middle-aged, but the stern look in his eyes told me he was strong and sturdy.

  Jenna gasped and put on her glasses. “Enoch!” She called as she noticed another dim glowing light approaching from the shadows just behind the man.

  I gasped and stepped around the silent old man. Enoch was hovering at Jenna’s side in his angelic form. “Enoch, is that you?” I whispered.

  “You Mediums,” Enoch sounded frustrated. “What are you two doing so far in the forest? This isn’t Heaven. You still have to be careful. There’s still danger around here.”

  I huffed and turned to glance at the man with the lantern. He was still standing still with the lantern next to him. He hadn’t moved a muscle, or turned around to see us.

  “Is that spirit alive, or what?” I whispered.

  Enoch strained his eyes to see the man, and then gasped. “That’s Paul!”

  Jenna jumped. “Paul?! Paul the Apostle? Paul the Higher One of Primal?”

  Paul turned as soon as Jenna raised her voice to speak. He gave a grunt and walked passed us without a single word. I watched as the strange spirit disappeared into the shadows.

  Enoch took us back to the telling pool and told a brief story about Paul’s significance and his life on Earth. I learned that the old man was the author of many of the letters in the New Testament of the Bible. It was rather disturbing to hear that Paul had been a persecutor of the followers of Jesus. Apparently, Jesus came to Paul in a vision and had converted the man into becoming one of His most significant followers.

  “And he’s the Higher One of Primal?” I narrowed my eyes suspiciously.

  Jenna nodded. “Yep. He’s a strong leader of an angel squad in Heaven, and he’s the Higher One in Primal. It’s amazing to see how much spirits can handle when they are the closest ones to God.” She looked around. “Where did he disappear to?”

  “Oh, he mustn’t have gone too far,” said Enoch. “I was expecting him to come today. Ace and I contacted his SoulBird in Purgatory. He told us that the Son of God will be here tomorrow night.”

  That night, Paul was introduced to the other spirits.

  I looked at Jenna, thinking it was strange that, for one moment, this man appeared out of nowhere in our way, and then another moment he was socializing with the other spirits. From the way he socialized, I could see that Paul was, actually, a very humble spirit.

  The SoulBirds were the only angelic spirits he hadn’t met before. Dewey immediately liked him and Cain was the first spirit he started sharing his Bible with.

  I widened my eyes with surprised. The Bible in Paul’s hand was the same Bible that Hannah had given me.

  Chapter Twenty-Six-

  I woke up next morning to the beautiful song of the larks. I gazed around the grass and realized everyone was still sound asleep, except for one spirit.

  Cain was missing.

  I frowned and stood up. There was a trail of snowflakes that led into the forest.

  Snowflakes?!

  Something was not right. I followed the trail of snowflakes through the forest and stepped out in the open, in front of a river bank.

  Across the river, I saw Cain conversing with a spirit whose head was hidden behind a large tree branch. The spirit seemed to be taller than Cain, for the short man was gazing up as he spoke. Both of them were speaking in quiet whispers. Cain looked very pale. I had never seen the short spirit look so flushed.

  Then Cain gave a small smile. He nodded and he and the other spirit hugged each other for what felt like the longest moment. Finally, the spirit released Cain and Cain nodded again. The spirit turned around and headed into the forest.

  I arched my neck, trying to depict who the spirit was. It was a man, and he wore nothing but the loin cloths around his waist. But I never got to see his face.

  Cain was watching the man leave with tears streaming down his face. But I could see that the short man was smiling.

  I crossed my eyes and huffed. I still didn’t get to see who that spirit was. But then I did see something. I widened my eyes and released that another figure was
creeping up to the man’s spirit as he wandered deeper into the forest. It was Prima Dona. And she was holding her ice spear, ready to thrust it at the spirit.

  I gasped. “No! Watch out!” I yelled as loud as I can.

  But Cain had already noticed. He dashed forward as soon as Prima Dona flung her spear at the spirit.

  “Abel!” He yelled out the spirit’s name and dashed in front of him. Prima Dona’s spear stabbed into Cain’s side and the man froze like a statue.

  “Cain!” I cried. I felt my heart ready to leap out of my chest.

  Prima Dona instantly turned to face me with a scowl. She hissed and aimed her spear at me, shooting out a million ice shards at me.

  Instantly, warm hands grabbed my shoulders and yanked me aside. Jesus was behind me.

  “Rahh!” Prima Dona’s eyes widened with wild fury. “You…!”

  “Prima Dona,” Jesus was looking straight into the woman’s eyes. “Leave this place. Your powers are weak here.”

  I cast a quick glance at Cain. The other spirit—Abel—was kneeling beside Cain, who was already sitting up. With a gasp of relief, I realized he had already recovered.

  “Arrrgh! I’m not going anywhere!” Rasped Prima Dona. She banged her spear into a tree, but the trunk only froze for a second before the ice crumbled away. Prima Dona let out a scream and pointed at me with her spear again. “I won’t be gone forever! This will not be the last time you shall see me!”

  And then she raced into the woods.

  After letting my heart settle, I gazed over where Abel was still kneeling next to Cain. I recalled the stories that Jenna and my guardians told me.

  “Abel…” I whispered. “He’s Cain’s brother, isn’t he?”

  Jesus nodded. He left my side, walked across the river, and knelt by Abel’s side. The three of them were conversing in low voices. I was just about to jump across the river and meet with them, but Jesus cast me a quick glance that told me to remain where I was.