18 Truths

by Jamie Ayres

  Nate’s big, soulful eyes locked on mine, giving me his puppy dog stare while frowning. Finally, he turned toward Ruth to answer. “I think we have plenty of questions, but we need some time to process.”

  She nodded. “No problem. I’ll see you here at the same time tomorrow. Feel free to come with any questions or concerns then.”

  Nate and I thanked her, gathered our book bags, then shuffled out of the room together.

  “You okay?” he asked as we made our way into the hall toward our living quarters.

  Without meaning to, I let out a slight snort.

  Nate raised his eyebrows, his pecan-shaped eyes holding all the colors of an ocean, the place I’d most like to be right now.

  I wondered if he knew me at all if he even had to ask that question. Opening my mouth to say so, I quickly bit my tongue. I really didn’t want to have this conversation right now. But if I said I was okay, then it’d be the first lie I ever told Nate in our dating relationship. And I hated to deceive him, but if there’s anything my after-life had taught me, it was that some truths were left unsaid.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Here you are.” Ruth handed me a cup of coffee that smelled like caramel and cinnamon.

  I gripped the mug with both hands, the warmth spreading through my body despite the terror plaguing my every thought. “Thanks.” After taking a few sips, I asked, “How long does it usually take people to adjust to their life as a spirit guide?”

  She shrugged. “Depends. Although I mostly deal with training angels, some people I’ve trained only took a few days, others took a few years.”

  “What do you think the difference is?”

  Patting my shoulder, she said, “Confidence. You have to believe you can do this. Now, are you ready?”

  I spent the day learning the basics of hypnosis, how the process worked. Now Ruth was going to put me under as part of my training. Nate would experience the same training session but without me in the room, since hypnosis was a very personal matter.

  “Pay attention to the tone of my voice and language so you can integrate my techniques into your own hypnosis,” she reminded me. “I’ll start with the most basic induction and then move to a more progressive approach. By the end of today, you’ll have the ability to relax yourself and others deeply in minutes, no matter the emotional state.”

  Over the next hour, Ruth tried to put me under hypnosis, but the process didn’t take. “Is there something wrong with me?”

  She smoothed a hand over her hair. “We’re all broken, Olga. Some people just have a harder time relaxing than others. With your photographic memory, I’m sure you know the hypnosis script by heart now. But the most important thing to know before I release you today is not necessarily if you can hypnotize someone. It’s can you stay calm in crisis?”

  After Ruth muttered some words, a demon materialized in the room.

  I stepped back, staring in horror. “What are you doing?” I screamed, eyeing the dark creature before me, his red eyes sparkling with amusement. He stood at least a foot taller than me and wore a black robe. His face was a skeleton, whiter than Riel’s skin, nothing remotely human in his glowing scarlet eyes at all.

  “Training you. Remember, look up.”

  Taking Ruth’s advice literally, I pinned my gaze on the ceiling but saw nothing.

  The demon took advantage of my momentary distraction by lurching forward and grabbing a hold of my crucifix, choking me with his thin, skeletal hands. I closed my eyes for a heartbeat or two, praying for Ruth to fight this battle for me. When she didn’t, I realized her advice to look up wasn’t meant to be taken literally. I narrowed my eyes at the demon and stretched a hand in front of me. “Satan’s angel, I command you, in the name of the Lord, to leave my presence, and I bring the blood of Jesus Christ between us.”

  The demon didn’t listen. Instead, he tightened his grip, paralyzing me. My eyes pleaded with Ruth, letting her know I was in trouble, the only thing I was capable of. I couldn’t even open my mouth to speak. My lips felt like somebody had glued them shut. Then, I forced myself to breathe in and out through my nose like Ruth instructed during hypnotherapy, and pictured the fear wearing away at my face disappear.

  Closing my eyes so I couldn’t see the demon again, I prayed silently, asking God to give me the strength and faith to pass this test. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I didn’t, but I knew I would trade in several years of staying in a cold room of steel and concrete over having to redo this particular exercise. I opened my eyes and focused, finding my words enough to shout the same prayer as before. This time a strange feeling swelled in my chest, and I knew I really meant the words. My crucifix went slack, and the demon popped out of the room, like it was never there in the first place.

  Ruth pulled me toward her in a hug. “Well done, Olga, well done. In fact, you defeated that demon in record time. Looks like I won’t have to give you detention for your lack of faith after all.”

  “Day three of our training session will commence outside,” Ruth announced. “Follow me, please.”

  “This should be interesting,” Nate whispered to me on our way out.

  A knot formed in my stomach. “Not sure if interesting is the right word, but I guess anything will be better than yesterday.”

  We ended up at a grassy knoll behind the headquarters building, where Riel waited in a tree for us. He popped his wings, then flew to the ground with the grace of, well, an angel. He stood across from me, dimming his brightness so I could actually look at him. “So, I heard you fought a demon and won. Do you think you’ll have the same results with an angel?”

  “Um, excuse me?”

  He grinned at me. “I’m here today to aid Ruth in instructing the pair of you in hand-to-hand combat.”

  “I thought our fights would be more of the spiritual nature than physical?” Nate questioned.

  Riel nodded. “They are, but that doesn’t mean you won’t get into a few scuffles along the way. Even though you don’t feel pain in Limbo, there’s no guarantee you won’t find yourself in another dimension. The first thing you need to know is to keep your hands by your faces to protect yourself at all times. It will save you the hassle of being knocked unconscious.”

  When I didn’t do anything, Riel reached for my hands and positioned them in front of my face. His touch was warm and made my heart beat faster for some reason.

  Nate copied my movements, then faced me.

  “Oh, am I fighting you?”

  He answered me by hooking a foot around one of my legs and yanking me forward, knocking me to the ground while he cushioned the fall underneath me. We both vibrated with laughter.

  Riel lifted me to my feet. “Obviously, Nate can’t be trusted to play fairly. Change of plans. I’ll fight you, and Ruth will take Nate.”

  Nate sat up, flicking pieces of grass off his pants. When he stood, the movement was stiff, and his mouth held a scowl.

  But Riel didn’t notice because his gaze remained locked with mine as he circled around me.

  Beads of sweat dotted my forehead. “So, you think this is playing fairly? You’re an angel!”

  “The fallen angels you’ll be up against will hardly care if it’s a fair fight.”

  I shook my head. “What’s a girl to do, then?”

  He grinned. “Try to outsmart your opponent.”

  Going for the element of surprise, I swung my arm, aiming for his face.

  Ducking easily, he laughed. “That’s the best you could come up with?”

  I glanced at Nate, but it didn’t look like he would be giving me any pointers on fighting later. Ruth already knocked him to the ground. At least Riel showed me a little mercy by giving me a chance.

  Lurching forward, I tried the run-like-a-bull approach, but Riel easily popped out his wings and flew behind me.

  “Cheater.”

  “Human.”

  An idea formed. I decided to ignore his rule about guarding my face for a moment to loop my hair in
to a ponytail. Afterward, I pretended to throw something over Riel’s shoulder. Just like a stupid puppy, he fell for the oldest trick in the book. As soon as he turned his back, I pounced on him, figuring if he went anywhere this time, at least he wasn’t getting away from me.

  Punching an angel just seemed too wrong, so I settled for digging my claws into his arms as hard as I could. Riel yelped before beating his wings twice, completely knocking me off. Before I could even hit the ground, he caught me in his arms.

  “Much better.”

  I was too breathless to reply.

  Ash suddenly appeared beside us, startling a scream out of me. “Sorry to frighten you, Olga. Riel, the throne has requested our presence at once.”

  Very gingerly, Riel set me down and whispered, “Too bad. This was just starting to get fun. We’ll pick this up another time.”

  Faster than I could think Awesome Angel Abilities, Riel and Ash were gone.

  Nate rubbed a hand over his face. “I hope that means we get a free pass for the day.”

  Ruth’s eyes glinted. “Not totally. I want you to use this free time to start studying for your written exam tomorrow. The test will consist of two hundred multiple choice questions, as well as two essays. You’ll both need a ninety percent to pass.”

  She headed toward the back door of headquarters, but Nate called after her. “What are we studying, exactly?”

  “I would’ve thought it obvious. Your Spirit Guide Handbook. You received a copy from Ash the day you signed up. Or as Riel lovingly refers to it, Spirit Guide for Dummies 101.”

  Ruth departed without another word, leaving behind a hazy cloud of vague instructions.

  Nate looked over at me and grinned. “You want to study in my room?”

  I undid the ponytail I created in haste earlier. “Unfortunately, I think that’s a bad idea if we plan on studying.”

  A few minutes later, we sat on a bench by the pond, our instruction manuals spread across our laps. “The Spirit Guide Handbook is your key to understanding the mysterious Underworld. Questions will invariably rise on your journey to aiding lost souls to find healing, and this book will help you unlock spiritual treasures, revealing greater insight into God’s holy plan for His children.”

  Nate groaned after I finished reading the introduction. “I’m confused already. What’s with all the big words?”

  Ignoring him, I kept on reading. “Today, you learned the truth. You now know more about the world God created than ever before. Yet, there is still much to learn. The ins and outs of being a spirit guide is a subject of enormous scope and depth, covering a full range of history and reaching the most mundane aspects of people’s lives to their most sublime thoughts and aspirations. We will describe in clear terms the…”

  The words meshed together, hurting even my brain, although I normally loved to study. By the end of our study session, we’d read twenty-five chapters ranging from “Developing A Religious Need In Your Assignment For A Positive Transformation” to “Manipulating Situations in Time and Space For Spiritual Satisfaction.” We had to pull an all-nighter, and even though I now had an interesting compilation of answers to hundreds of questions I’d been dying to know about religious concepts and beliefs, I somehow felt less prepared. The amazing spiritual and historical context of our handbook only demonstrated to me even more how wide the universe is.

  “Congratulations, you got a hundred,” Ruth finally said to me, handing back my test. She’d taken painstakingly long to grade my answers. She moved to stand in front of Nate. “I know you stayed up all night to study, Nate, and your hard work paid off.”

  “It’s not a ninety percent though,” Nate said, looking down at his eighty-nine-point-five percent.

  “We like to round up here at the Spirit Guide Training Academy. Showing grace is what we’re all about.” Ruth looked like she struggled to hold back a smile. “After lunch, the rest of our day will be filled with some more educational videos and going over any questions you might’ve had while studying.”

  I nodded. “All right. What about tomorrow? It’s our last day with you, right?”

  “Yes.” Her phone beeped, and she slid the device out of her pocket. “Ah, here’s a text from Riel now. He said he’ll have a special test for both of you tomorrow, a final final exam of sorts that will involve you taking part in a simulation he created.”

  I’d dreaded the last day of spirit guide boot camp for many reasons, but especially now. Videos and reading were two pastimes in the middle of my comfort zone, but I was certain ‘simulation’ wouldn’t fall under that category.

  orry I’m late. The Throne called me for an emergency,” Riel told us at eight-thirty. We’d been waiting for him a half hour.

  “No worries,” Nate said. “We’re very flexible, as long as it doesn’t cut into our lunch break.”

  Riel ignored him and continued. “The scenarios you’re training in today aren’t real. They will be figments of your imagination created by me. I fashioned them out of your experiences, much like your after-death purification process. When you’ve passed both of the tests together, then you’ll be card carrying members of the spirit guide club.”

  All it took was one snap of Riel’s fingers, and Nate and I were in a NASCAR race, with Nate in the driver’s seat! The green flag already waved high in the air, and Nate stepped on the gas faster than I could’ve ever imagined. It felt like we were flying. For the first lap, I couldn’t stop screaming.

  Once I calmed down enough to gather my thoughts, I realized Nate’s test was perfect because he hadn’t driven since he died in his accident over a year ago.

  Then I heard Riel’s muffled voice coming over the headphones in our helmets, giving directions to Nate to fly high, then stay low, then to catch up with the number eighteen car because he’d made a deal with that driver to help us if we could keep up. Nate flew around the corner, the turn hugging us. After surviving the steep incline of the track, I laughed out loud when I realized the driver of number eighteen was Ash.

  I slid up the visor portion of my helmet and waved to him through the mesh covered window, black specs from tire rubber flying through the little holes. Screwing up my nose, I caught a whiff of octane. The smell wasn’t like gasoline, making me gag. This fuel held the scent of raw power and made my eyes burn, flooding them with tears. I immediately slid my visor back down.

  During the next two-and-a-half hours, the forty-three cars on the track rumbled with uncontrolled rage, thunderous applause vibrating in my ears. The drivers often ran in one to three packs, sometimes only inches apart, while traveling over 200miles per hour. Nate and I didn’t chat. He concentrated on driving the ride from hell, and I prayed harder than I ever had before, my chest heaving with adrenaline. Somehow, I felt horrified and exhilarated at the same time.

  Just as I feared, “The Big One” came at the end, and we were one of the five cars involved in the crash. All I saw was a blur. Another car rounding turn one lost control and hit us. Suddenly, we fishtailed wildly. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as our car went completely sideways. We ripped through a thick cloud of smoke before skittering into a wall. Then the car went airborne a good fifteen feet above the track. Gravity did its job when the vehicle came down, end over end in an endless barrel roll. The car crashed against a guard rail, spewing flames and smoke with exploding pieces of machinery littering the track. The atmosphere remained eerily quiet for a moment, like a graveyard. The only sound came from wind flapping the race flags around the track, then the scream lodged tight in my throat finally let loose.

  “Nate!”

  The smell of burnt rubber made me choke. I couldn’t imagine anything being left of the vehicle, and as the smoke cleared, it revealed little more than a rolling cage with four flat tires.

  Nate and I slipped off our helmets. He looked up and muttered a few choice words to the man upstairs, but to my surprise, not the using-Your-name-in-vain kind. Instead, Nate thanked God.

  I gave him a few se
conds as I surveyed the crash, the paramedics nowhere in sight. I squelched my panic though since I knew this was all part of the scenarios that Riel set up. I think.

  “Are you all right?” I yelled, my ears still ringing from the sounds of the crash.

  He held up his gloved finger. “Just give me a minute to catch my breath.”

  I undid my safety harness and crawled out of what was left of the car. Nate followed suit.

  Holding onto him, I didn’t loosen my grip as I said, “For the first time ever, I’m glad we’re dead.” My voice sounded thick as I held back sobs.

  Nate smiled, actually more of a grimace, like he was in pain. It’d have to be the emotional type though since our bodies couldn’t hurt in this realm. He leaned against the barrier, still intact, and sighed heavily. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because if we were alive, we would’ve just died, and I haven’t had nearly enough time with you. At least now, no matter what happens, we’ll always have each other.”

  He frowned. “I’m not sure about that. Do you really think I passed that test?”

  “Well, Ruth told us yesterday that our tests would be about the fear of being out of control. But you can’t control something that’s out of control.”

  Now he smirked. “You mean like fate? Destiny?”

  “Exactly. Nobody knows what’s going to happen—not in a car on the way home from school, not on a sailing trip, not during a thunderstorm, not when you swallow an entire bottle of pills, not when you turn down Heaven to become spirit guides.”

  Nate’s face looked like he had just walked out from underneath a dark cloud into the sun. “So control is an illusion. The only one who knows those things is God, and He’s the only one who can control anything, so I need to hand over my control to Him.”

  I grabbed him by the front of his safety suit and gave him a lingering kiss. “You got it! But like Victor Hugo said, we also have to have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones. We can’t always be waiting for the other shoe to drop, thinking the worst. Can I ask you something?”