by Laury Falter
While all of this felt surreal, none of it surprised me. With my faculties fully developed, I knew why I was here and had to control my eagerness to begin discovering what otherworldly gifts I had brought with me, what unique talents I might unearth and perfect to help the messengers.
As it turned out, I came with just one, a single solitary skill that I would never have known I possessed until I visited this other realm…and I only needed to fall asleep to discover it.
As the woman settled me into a makeshift bed by the fire, the day’s ordeal overtook my human body and my eyes closed. When I opened them again, I fully expected to see flames licking the top of the stone hearth, or even a darkened, empty hearth with subdued embers.
What came into view I was not prepared to see.
Rising overhead stood a white arch, made of smooth stone across the ceiling and ornately carved designs along its beams.
This was not the thatched roof of the home where I’d fallen asleep.
It was beautiful, designed to the finest details, and seemed to emanate its own bright light.
My sense of hearing took over then. Soft whispers, like the ebb and flow of the wind through a narrow opening, drifted melodically around me.
I sat up to face a wall directly in front of me. Made of small pockets chiseled tightly next to one another and stretching the entire length from floor to ceiling, I felt my jaw drop as I took in the amazing span of the pockets before me. I knew then that I had somehow ended up someplace I hadn’t expected, without ever moving a single limb, and which was completely foreign to me.
This didn’t make sense. This didn’t make any sense at all…
I leapt to my feet, startling a man and woman engaged in a conversation a few feet away. Having gained their attention, I asked in a rush of words, “Where am I?”
They blinked in confusion at me and then understanding smiles crossed their faces.
“The Hall of Records, dear,” said the man in a language not used in the other realm.
“The Hall of Records?” I mumbled, surveying my entire surroundings.
Down the distance of the hall, others floated at varying levels off the ground. Some were reaching into the pockets that apparently lined both sides of the hall; others had already withdrawn a scroll from inside its pocket and were now reading it, the ends of their scrolls hanging several feet from where they were suspended.
“But the Hall of Records is where messengers wake up,” I said.
“Yes,” the woman assured. “Possibly Hermina can shed light,” she suggested with a sweep of her hand to reference someone behind me, “on what must be a befuddling awakening.”
Again I repeated the words being used to explain what was happening to me. “Awakening,” I muttered, spinning around to find Hermina behind me.
“Hello, Magdalene.” She was grinning in a way that told me she expected this to happen, had possibly been waiting for it.
“Were we…Were we rejected from the other realm?” It was the only explanation I could come up with at the moment.
Hermina tipped her head back and laughed, a harmony that echoed delicately off the walls. “No, Magdalene.”
“But this is…We are in the afterlife…”
“We are.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No,” she granted and motioned for me to follow her. I did, passing several others until we stopped at a stone bench where a man was sprawled across it, one leg having fallen off to dangle to the floor, deeply asleep.
“This is Jerod. In a few minutes, he will awaken here…in the afterlife. He will be coming from the other realm, where his body there will have fallen asleep.”
“Yes, Hermina, I understand he is a messenger,” I replied. “Messengers’ bodies await their return here in the hall.”
Surprised, she said, “So you have been told?”
I thought this point was irrelevant and sighed louder than I should have. “I overheard it being explained once.”
“Good, what I am about to tell you will come easier to you then.”
“All right,” I said, cautious but ready for an explanation.
The tone in her voice dropped to a somber note, the way someone does when expressing something of grave importance. I listened closely, so blinded by my denial that the truth evaded me until she finished speaking. “Each night, Magdalene, you will awaken here in the Hall of Records, on your own stone bench. When dawn breaks on the other side, or when you are needed back in your body there, you will return to it. You will never actually sleep, as others in the other realm will do. You are different, special.”
“Hermina,” I said, interrupting before she could go any further. My voice was trembling, and with good reason. “Are you…Do you mean…” I had to pause before speaking the words. “You’re trying to tell me that I’m like you?”
She smiled warmly. “Yes, I am.”
“It makes sense you wouldn’t have considered it before. Few of us do, Jerod being an exception.” She said this through an exasperated mutter as she gestured to the man on the bench. “Most of us, however, do not expect it. It’s too great an honor, too impressive a gift to assume to be what we are. None of us know for certain until we awake here, in the hall.”
I remained silently rigid, my muscles having frozen into taut, solid strings, causing her to chuckle.
She tilted her head at me, openly amused. “You’ll get along well with the mortals. You both are beholding of gifts and so reticent in believing it.”
When I looked at her again, she was still gazing at me in amusement but her expression turned serious. “Magdalene,” she said solemnly, “you are one of an extremely rare breed, arguably the most powerful ones in existence. I tend to agree with that judgment, but I am biased. Existing in both dimensions at once allows us a particular freedom, autonomy from space and time…for the most part…that others cannot claim. You are different, Magdalene, far more than you have imagined. Now that you do know what you are, I implore you to use this gift wisely.”
It felt like I would be wronging the universe for accepting this notion as being a reality. Part of me simply refused to believe it, even as I stood in the hall, where I awoke only a few minutes earlier. Yet I had the instinct that the more I contemplated this discussion the realization of what I was would become more firmly set. These were messengers we were discussing, an elite group that were so sparse and so legendary they seemed a figment to many in the afterlife. Because of this status they held, it seemed that my being a part of them felt like a violation to all that was right and true.
Yet, I did awake in the Hall of Records; I did maintain bodies in both realms.
“Accept your fate,” Hermina said, rattling my train of thought. “It’ll be easier on you.”
I took a moment to swallow back my resistance. Struggling to release the words from my mouth, I asked, “And how would you suggest I do that? Use this gift wisely?”
“Well,” she replied, lifting Jerod’s leg and dropping it to the floor so the bench was free for her to sit. His body was now askew, although it didn’t seem to matter to her. “Most of our brethren exercise their ability in the delivery of messages, hence the origin of our name.”
She paused to await my response to this implied suggestion.
“I’ll need to train with you,” I hinted.
She slapped her hands giddily on her knees. “Yes, you will,” she exclaimed.
“Under one condition,” I added. “I do this without a guardian.”
Staring back at me, I could see her lack of consensus to it. “You really do have something with Eran, don’t you?”
Stunned, I leaned back slightly.
There was no denying it. It was already evident that she had noticed and she probably wasn’t the only one. So as I stood there, and she openly assessed me while making her decision, I tipped my chin higher.
“I don’t need to ask if you understand the jeopardy of what you are doing. I know you do. I wonder, however, w
hat it is between the two of you and why you both fight it so vehemently.”
I intended to stop her and ask what she meant by that, but she went on to give me her answer.
“But I do believe in one following his or her own journey, whatever that may be, so I will acquiesce. Your secret will be kept safe with me.”
“And the guardians?”
“You need not worry about being exposed to them. The only foreseeable interactions we might have with them in the afterlife are during training where they have uniformly agreed not to intervene.”
I nodded, contemplating our plan. It seemed comprehensive. But it just seemed that way.
So I began to follow our arrangement. Messenger by day, trainee by night. I did this entirely without any guardian by my side. And then Eran discovered my secret and changed everything.
CHAPTER SIX: SECRET
THE INTERESTING FACT ABOUT SECRETS IS that they usually don’t remain a secret for long. Unfortunately, this was also the case with mine.
Not long after I discovered I was a messenger, and before I could even walk on earth, I opened my eyes to find the hall’s elaborate ceiling hovering overhead. Hushed conversations drifted around me and a soft breeze caressed my skin. Because I hadn’t stopped visiting the hall since my time on earth began, these were familiar and welcomed sights.
Sitting up, I didn’t bother to look around. I could hear everyone nearby well enough. Jerod was eagerly arguing the finer aspects of a philosophical debate from the position of, “How is it we can become to know what we don’t know when we don’t know to ask about what we don’t know in the first place?” Another messenger, Alban, was in the midst of badgering someone into a bet, vehemently claiming, “I’ll wager that by the end of her life on earth, she’ll have had three births, not two, and go so far as to lay stake on the fact that one of those births will have red hair.” I was well acquainted with these voices and the nuances and characteristics of each of their owners, having spent time with them in training to the point that I knew in the next moment, Alban would up his ante.
After swinging my feet over the side of my bench, I heard him demand eagerly, “Double the bet. I double the bet!”
Smiling, I shook my head and stood up, and that was when I sensed him.
It began in my stomach with a blast of heat that seemed to sear upward across my chest. I knew this feeling, this excitement instantly. Having only felt it once before, I also knew its origin.
My head rotated directly toward it and there, standing just a few yards away, was Eran.
While I was in front of the wall closest to us, he faced the opposite direction, so that he could look across to the other side. Even though he wasn’t. His eyes were downcast, addressing the sleeping person on the bench before him.
It was Bailey, his ward, curled up against the back of her bench so sweet and innocent.
He was waiting for her to awake, or surveying her while she slept.
He’d never been here before that I’d known of. So whatever his purpose was now, it would be important.
I inspected him from a distance, noting his hair was slightly longer but otherwise he looked the same.
Just as I remembered, his stance was daunting, ready for anything but at ease until it happened. His arms were crossed over his chest, loose and relaxed. His legs were apart, solidly planted yet prepared to move. I wondered if the man had ever known an existence that didn’t require a constant mental and physical preparedness for battle.
From his profile, by that angle of strikingly handsome features, I could tell his face was drawn into restraint. I had the desire to remain in place and memorize every beautiful peak and valley but that was incredibly short lived.
Gradually, his head rose until his view was of the pockets of scrolls directly across the hall from him. He didn’t appear to see them, though. Instead, as slowly as it had risen, his head turned until his eyes found me.
And deep down, I knew unequivocally, that he had felt my presence as I had done the same with him.
His lips remained taut and his eyes locked on mine, holding me like they had done before, only this time they were obscured by the dip of his eyebrows as he expressed his confusion in seeing me.
The Hall of Records was open to all, but only the messengers awoke here. So the understanding came over him at precisely the same time it slammed into me. There was no denying the truth now.
I was a messenger. And he knew it.
His arms came down and he turned entirely toward me. As he took the first step in breaching the distance between us, I prepared to hold my ground, in more ways than one. He took another step, striding forward with the conviction of a man on a mission. Yet by the third step he came to a stop.
“Eran?” Bailey called out. She was sitting up now, legs gracefully swept over the edge of her bench, hands folded delicately in her lap.
There was something in her voice telling me that her feelings for Eran held more for him than the simple respect for her guardian.
Even though Eran had halted, he didn’t return to her. The two of us stood our ground; me defiant, him undoubtedly thinking through his next action.
His lips shifted as he sighed at me in what seemed to be exasperation.
I didn’t move.
His chest lifted as he drew in another breath. When it fell, his lips dropped with it into an irritated frown.
He was not familiar with the feeling of someone ignoring his commands.
“Eran,” Bailey said again.
And as he turned back to her, I knew I hadn’t won. The certainty of it was there in his eyes. Before he’d completed his rotation, he’d come to the conclusion that eluded him on what his next action would be. This I knew. I also knew I wasn’t going to like it.
Our standoff having ended, I released my appendages and went to work, finding the section with scrolls with locations beginning with the letter H so that I could deliver the message from a woman whose brother recently passed. As I did this, my focus strayed until it landed back on Eran. He was kneeling at Bailey’s bench, holding her hands and speaking with a kind firmness to her. She listened attentively and nodded sporadically, but her expression told me that she was having a difficult time with whatever Eran was explaining to her. Her lips were trembling and more than once she wiped at her eyes. And my heart softened for her. Whatever the subject, it was hard for her to accept. She seemed, however, to come to terms with it just as I swept my finger across the row of words on the scroll I held and the Hall of Records began to dissolve away.
Then she did the strangest thing.
Her face lifted to where I hovered and she watched me, closely, before giving a final, hesitant nod of agreement.
An instant before they disappeared, along with the rest of the Hall of Records, I saw Eran roll back on his feet, a sense of liberation washing over him, just before he made the same motion as Bailey had done. His head rose to find me.
Their actions plagued me as I delivered my messages for the night, stirring debates in my head until I arrived at our training grounds in my part of the heavens.
Hermina had already arrived and was performing a new throwing technique that landed Jerod on his back.
“You look flustered,” she remarked as she straightened herself and caught her breath.
“I am.”
She narrowed her eyes in contemplation. “The last time I saw you flustered was when you interacted with…”
There was no need to say his name. We both knew who it was.
“Can I speak with you?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said slowly, wondering what this was about.
“Yes, go, leave me be,” a voice exhaled from below us. We had forgotten Jerod, who was sitting on the ground with a hand to his lower back.
“Are you all right?” Hermina asked, although she didn’t seem too concerned.
“I hurt in places I didn’t know existed. What do you think?” he snapped.
Hermina chuckled before t
easing, “And to think an old woman did that to you,” she said, swiping a lock of white hair from her aged face.
“Old woman my horse’s…,” he muttered.
Hermina didn’t wait for him to finish. She swung an arm over my shoulder and led me to the edge of the clearing. “So how did he discover our secret?” she asked.
I looked at her in surprise.
“It’s the only hold you think you had over him,” she explained.
“Are you saying I never did have one?”
“You’re disrupting my practice,” Jacob yelled in warning from across the clearing.
We ignored him.
“I’m saying you have more than you believe. Now, tell me how he learned of you being a messenger.”
I recounted the details, which left her nodding thoughtfully by the end.
“He’s going to assign one to me,” I summed up my distress. “I saw the look in his eyes, that insult at being opposed.”
“And if he does?” she asked.
My answer shot from my mouth before I knew it, as if it had been forming all this time. “I’m going to deny them.”
“And refute the judgment?” she challenged, shocked but amused.
“Not refute,” I said shaking my head. “I simply won’t acknowledge them as my guardian and will go on with my business.”
“And you think that’s the best approach?” she asked.
“I think it’s the only one.” I pondered it for a moment and then drew in a sharp breath. “That’s what you meant by my having more power than I believe…Thank you, Hermina. I understand now.”
Elated, I kissed her cheek, withdrew my sword, and joined practice, even while overhearing her faint response.
“That’s not exactly what I meant…”
But I was already in the clearing and engaged in a duel, overjoyed at the resolution to my problem and without any preconceived notion that it wasn’t the problem heading my way.