“What did I miss?” Leo asked as he flew through the window.
“They are engaged,” I said looking down on the two of them.
“Good! But they have to leave right now if this is going to work out. Don Marco sent for Ricardo and a new priest. As soon as they find out that Celeste is gone…”
“OK, let’s go, let’s go!” I urged Max and Celeste. “You have to get out of here!”
“What are they doing?” Leo asked once he saw a sack full of jewelry scattered on the ground.
“Max is choosing a ring for her to wear.”
Leo rolled his eyes then bent down and pointing to a random ring said to Max, “This one, give her this one.”
Obediently Max picked the one that Leo had suggested and put it on Celeste’s finger.
“What made you choose that one?” Celeste asked intrigued.
“I don’t know…” Max pondered. “It just felt right,” he said—and we laughed.
“OK. Enough of that now, we have to go!” Leo said as he recovered from laughing.
“We better go. I have a feeling that time is of the essence,” Max said as he got to his feet.
“Yeah…me too, but where should we go? I mean…we have to get married first right?” Her face was incredulous.
“Yes, of course,” Max said with an assuring smile. “We get married first.”
“Padre Fernández!” I shouted.
“And I know just who to go to for that matter,” Max said as he helped her gather all her belongings and then picked up the few possessions that he had. “Padre Fernández was the priest that helped me get an education. He will marry us, and if we are lucky we might be able to rest at my old house for a few hours before we head to the coast to catch a boat to Argentina.” He looked at her eagerly, knowing that she would love that idea.
“Argentina, really? Oh—Wait, what’s your first name?”
Max smiled broadly and laughed, “Maximiliano, but just call me Max.”
They got to Padre Fernández’s chapel at the break of dawn, and oddly enough, Padre Fernández was waiting for them. Leo had flown ahead and was in one corner of the chapel, quietly chatting with another angel.
“Hi, I see you warned him,” I said to Leo while pointing to the old priest.
“Yeah, Jose and I woke Padre Fernández up and gave him a heads up,” Leo informed me with his usual impish grin.
I gave him a quizzical look, knowing full well he had some sort of mischievous fun while trying to wake up the priest.
Apparently, Padre Fernández’s angel and Leo had worked together before. They were the ones behind the plot to educate Max, and now they had prepared the old priest for this precise moment.
The three of us witnessed the short marriage ceremony that Padre Fernández performed. All three mortals had tears in their eyes, yet not from sadness.
“One more thing!” the old priest said once the ceremony was over. “I have a wedding gift for you.” He turned and hurried over to the altar. On it was a huge white leather-bound, and well worn bible. He took it and shuffled back over to Max and Celeste. “This Bible,” he said with shaky hands, “represents the bulk of my earthly possessions. I want you both to have it,” he said as a tear slid from his wrinkly face.
Celeste leaned over and gently kissed the priest on the cheek. He blushed and smiled.
“What can I say, she likes priests,” Max teased, and they all laughed.
Leo and I followed the happy couple from a distance as they made their way to the little cottage.
“I think that once you see my home you might regret what you have just done,” Max said apologetically.
Celeste hit him on the arm, reminding me of the many times she had done the same to me. I knew that my mission was over before the pendant started glowing.
The sun was barely rising on the horizon now, and our pendants glowed with such intensity that they made the morning light seem weak.
Instinctively, Leo and I raised our pendants to see the instructions.
“Earth Cultures and Current Events Class,” both pendants said.
“There’s another war about to start, and I bet we’ll all have to get training for that.”
“I just hope they can get to Argentina without any problems. I hope they can sell that jewelry and get some—” I was cut off mid sentence by Leo’s dismissive hand.
“They’ll be fine. Jose and I made the old priest buy two tickets to Argentina, and he tucked them inside the Bible. He literally used all of his money to buy those tickets.”
Leo put one of his arms around me and we rose up. Below us, two little dots entered the small cottage and closed the doors behind them.
* * * * *
Chapter 30
I stopped by the Angelic Missions building to see who was still around. My fears were validated—Russell and Nancy were gone. I stared at their names and silently wished them good luck.
Alex was still working with Henry, and I wondered how Estelle was fairing, now as the mother of a young Russell. Valerie, Dane, Dorian, and Luz along with Amor and Paz were still here and on different missions. I noticed that Katie had been assigned to take the same class as me, so I headed there at once.
Katie and I sat by each other, and she glowed with a new kind of light. I was about to ask her about it, but the teacher began his class and at the same moment, Agatha glided in followed by Eros. I scrutinized their auras. On the outside they looked perfectly happy and content, proud even. On the inside they were dark and vile, and as soon as they found a seat, the auras of the spirits around them started to change. They seemed to contaminate the auras around them—like an infection.
They didn’t notice me and I was glad for this. I didn’t want Katie’s bright and happy aura to be polluted by theirs. I studied them from my seat for a while, trying to see if I could discern anything from them. But it was hard, due to the number of spirits around me—Katie especially who couldn’t wait to share her exiting news with me, and parts of it kept floating away toward me, unsolicited. But nothing could be properly explained until class was out, so she had to restrain herself.
My mind kept shifting from Katie’s impatient thoughts to Agatha’s and Eros’s aura. I wanted to get some useful information that would shed some light on the whole Henry mystery. I also wanted to get more information about the so called Fallen Angels, which I knew Agatha would be in charge of. But whatever secrets they had, stayed with them. They seemed to be very interested in whatever the teacher was saying about the current war on Earth. What they learned seemed to please them to the extreme. That’s when I realized that perhaps I should be paying attention to the teacher as well, maybe then I would get some answers. So I spent the rest of class ignoring Katie’s stray thoughts and listening to the lecture.
Once class was over, Agatha and Eros left, and the spirits that had been seated around them for that period of time slowly regained a normal looking aura color. Katie was now free to explain herself and did so at once.
She was all in a flutter and her words spilled out like a flood of exuberant information. His name was Jase, he had been another Angel assigned to watch over an aborigine tribe in the Amazon. They didn’t get along at all at first. He was also an animal enthusiast, and was an infuriating know-it-all. He had the gift of healing, but for animals. He worked closely with the tribe’s doctor, helping him figure out the cause for an epidemic on some jungle creature that I couldn’t pronounce. When he was failing and couldn’t figure out why, Katie used her gift of communication to get some answers from the animals themselves. Apparently that’s when Jase started to see Katie in a different light, because up until that time he thought she was, “too flighty to be taken seriously.”
“He couldn’t have done it without me and he knew it, and that’s when he started to notice me,” Katie said smugly. “At first he was too stiff and serious, but once he saw that I could be frivolous and functional at the same time, he relaxed and we actually started having a good time.” S
he beamed.
“We loved being there with that tribe, Tess, and we promised each other that no matter where we were born in the world, we would make our way back to this same tribe and find each other here again. It is going to be our meeting point.”
“Katie, that’s a beautiful story!” I said, truly happy for her.
“It’s not a story, it’s real!” Katie grabbed both my hands and started bouncing up and down like a spring.
“I’m so happy for you!” I told her. “When do I get to meet him?”
She sighed and looked crestfallen for a moment. “He’s been assigned to another mission—he’s a Herald you know,” Katie said significantly.
Our pendants had been glowing but we were ignoring them. Finally I looked down at her pendant and she picked it up with resignation.
“Let’s see… oh! Have you ever been to the Eternal’s court?” Katie asked surprised.
“No, have you?”
“Well…I’m about to,” she said simply.
I looked down at my own pendant. “Eternals’ Court, Fifth Arbor, Third Path.”
Outside the planet’s orbit we saw Dayspring, flying impatiently.
“Tess!” Dayspring said, a little annoyed. “What took you so long?”
“It was my fault,” Katie answered. “I made her listen to my ramblings.”
Dayspring narrowed her eyes and studied Katie for a while, then smirked and shook her head. “OK…let’s go. They are waiting for us.”
“Who is waiting?” I asked.
“You’ll see.” Dayspring turned and flew toward the planet.
I wasn’t prepared for what I saw when we arrived at the Eternals’ planet. Our spirit world was beautiful, the way that Earth would be one day. But the Eternals’ planet was indescribable. There were flowers as big as we were, each path had a different hue and the vegetation was all in full bloom.
The third path was blooming with light turquoise color, and all the plants there were in that shade. Only the leaves added variety, being different shades of green and white, but the flowers and the fruit were all turquoise. A few of the flowers looked familiar, but most of them I had never seen before, which only meant that they would not grow on Earth.
There were animals roaming free as well, and fish swimming in some of the ponds. Birds, insects, and animals of all kinds were going about their day without disturbing anyone or each other. The most astonishing thing was the number of small children that ran around. Some were playing, some were listening to stories that were being read by Angels. A group of children seemed to be learning about an insect, because they were taking turns holding a magnifying glass and looking through it, while a female Cherub gave them instructions. Another group was painting a picture of a wiggly baby, who posed for them from a little crib made out of huge light turquoise petals.
We passed a group that was playing some instruments I had never seen, and I was astonished to see how little they all were.
“Who are all these kids?” I asked, a little mesmerized.
“All the children from every planet that die in childhood come here,” Dayspring said with a broad smile. “This is one of the main reasons why I like being one of the Eternals’ personal guards. I get to spend a lot of time here with them.”
“Are they immortal?” Katie asked. “They’re not spirits.”
“They are not immortal, they’re…more like Aeonians—they have physical bodies that don’t age.”
“Wouldn’t it be kind of a punishment, to be stuck being a certain age for a long time?” I said, and then I remembered how some people actually chose that for themselves.
“Well, they experience time like the Eternals do, so it actually doesn’t seem that long for them. They stay in this suspended state until their parents are ready to come and take them back. You see, the parents eventually get to finish raising them, but in the meantime, the Eternals keep them here and they get the royal treatment—literally.”
“I have a hard time seeing Kerubiel here,” I said.
“Are you kidding? He likes it here even more than I do. He’s currently playing ‘ride the cherub’ with a group of them,” Dayspring laughed.
“So why are we here?” Katie asked. “Not that I’m not happy to be here…” she corrected.
“You are here as guests, and…you are here to work, of course! You won’t be able to hold the children for obvious reasons, but they love to hear stories, and I think you two have quite a few to share.” Dayspring winked at Katie and her aura turned bright red.
Arbor number five was filled with children, and the Angel that was with them was saying goodbye to them.
“Katie, you have to be in another part of the planet, let me escort you there,” Dayspring announced, then she turned to me. “I leave you in good company, Tess. Have fun!”
I was soon engulfed by the children who all wanted different things from me. It took me a while to calm them all down, and then I asked each of them in turn what they wanted to do. We made a long list of their favorite activities and then got to the task of doing them. I told them stories, mainly Celeste’s life story. Then they wanted to race, so I flew in front of them and they tried to catch me—which was impossible for them even when they thought they had me. Then we went for a swim with some enigmatic looking sea creatures. As we were coming out of the water, Katie was there with her little group of children. She insisted that we follow them to a place they had just come from.
“Tess, I’ve never seen anything like this before! You are going to love it!”
We arrived at what looked like a small garden walled up by a tall thick hedge stocked with bright pink berries. Some of the children helped themselves as they passed, and some of them did not—to them it was just another day at the most beautiful daycare of all. They disappeared inside and Katie grabbed my hand as we entered.
This little refuge was filled with the biggest and most colorful flowers I had ever seen. Here the colors were mixed in the most inconceivable ways, reds and pinks and yellow petals adorned some flowers. Others were violet and orange, but the most spectacular thing about this place was not growing—but fluttering. Hundreds of butterflies, some as big as birds, were flitting teasingly all around us. When not in flight they would pose on a flower and drink of the nectar, and they held so still that after a while I realized that I had mistaken a few of them for flowers. The children loved this place. Some of them ran after the butterflies while others studied and smelled the flowers. Other children lay on their backs and watched the butterflies dance above them. I thought this a good idea and Katie did too, so we lay down and took in the beauty of the place.
“It’s reassuring, isn’t it?” Katie asked after a while. “To know that if we die in childhood we will come here—or if one of our children dies…”
“We won’t remember,” I said, trying not to sound pessimistic, but stating the obvious.
“I know we won’t, but maybe we will know it deep inside.”
* * * * *
Chapter 31
“Where is she?” Agatha’s temper was quickly rising.
“We looked for her all over,” Amanda said apologetically. “We even tried to find her on Earth, but… no one seems to know where she is.”
“Well she hasn’t left yet, so she has to be somewhere!”
“Excuse me…Queen.” Eugenia said with derision. Agatha turned her head sharply to where Eugenia stood. “There have been an increasing number of Heralds on our trail. It’s been getting harder and harder to get spirits alone.”
“Well…deal with it! Trap the Heralds if you have to!” Agatha responded.
“Are we planning on trapping the entire host?” Eugenia said sarcastically and Marcel laughed.
Agatha glided over to her and hovered inches away from her face.
“The goal is to keep them from progressing, so in my estimation, the more the merrier,” Agatha said dryly, and then gliding away she continued. “We are, however, running out of room…so our new str
ategy will be to get the best ones,” she said in what she thought to be a stroke of genius. “We need to get the Angels, the Heralds and the Sentinels! They are the ones that pose the greatest threat to us in mortality, not the weak-minded.” Agatha turned and started looking for someone. “Pasqual, get me a count of who is here,” she snapped. “We’ll reconvene as soon as he’s done, to see who needs to go.”
“And in the meantime, my Queen, what should the rest of us do?” Marcel asked in an oily voice.
“You choose a target and get to know their movements,” Agatha ordered.
“But Angels, especially Heralds and Sentinels, follow that glowing thing of theirs, we have no control over when and where they go. They are very unpredictable,” Eugenia pointed out.
“No matter, you follow them and you find out where they are. Wait for them to be done with whatever mission they are doing and when the opportunity presents itself, catch them!” Agatha said, irritated.
“They are often by themselves, so it shouldn’t be hard,” Eros added with sage experience. He had recently caught a Sentinel and had been very full of himself ever since. Eugenia and Marcel rolled their eyes and left the cavern in silent contempt.
“I’ve had about enough of those two. They need to be taught a lesson,” Eugenia complained, once they cleared the cave.
“I agree…and this last idea of hers might just give us a chance to do it,” Marcel replied with a cunning smile.
* * * * *
Chapter 32
Alex paced in the Angelic Lounge long enough to be noticed by several passing spirits. Some inquired if he was all right, and he assured them that he was, but the alarm he felt was not without good cause. Several thoughts were crowding his mind and he felt sure that if he could just hold Tess, he would feel a lot better.
Time was going by so quickly. Luz, Amor, and Paz had left, and Dorian had been called to be Luz’s Guardian Angel. This was troubling, since it could only mean that she could be old enough to be his mother by the time he was born. By now Alex had learned that life came with no guarantees, and that events hardly ever turned out the way one imagined them.
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