by S. B. Niccum
“Like your eyes,” I said with awe, while looking at the picture of her. The name seemed to fit her perfectly and a fleeting memory crossed my mind’s eye. It was an image of Celeste laughing; she was surrounded by light against an orange rocky backdrop. For that instant, she was no longer black and white, like on the paper, she was bright, her eyes were light blue-gray and her golden hair framed her face. Her laughter was intoxicating, and she made us all laugh. … Made us all laugh? I tried to go back and pull that memory forward again, but it was gone. For that split second, that memory seemed so real! For that second I felt differently, like I was part of something, something big, a greater … something … a large group of … some ones. And why did Alex come to mind right now?
“Yes, like my eyes. But I can’t tell you much more about me. My life is not what’s important here. You are. Now, since the cat is out of the bag, I decided to just come forward and introduce myself. Besides, I need to teach you how to focus your gift, so you don’t drive yourself nuts and so you don’t get yourself in trouble, like Agatha has. Not that she wasn’t looking for it; but that’s her deal.”
“What—what are you talking about? What trouble?”
“Well, simply this. You can hear voices from other realms of existence, that’s why we are having this conversation.”
I nodded, and she sounded like she was pacing right in front of me. “Once someone who is clairaudient realizes this, the floodgates are open. Your conscious mind will no longer block the sounds from the other realms and they will come in torrents. Since you can’t see us, only hear us, you won’t be able to distinguish who is who—until it’s too late. You need to be taught certain techniques that will help you discern who to listen to and who to ignore. Do you follow?”
“Yes. But could you stop pacing, it’s giving me a headache.”
“Humph!”
“Sorry, but it’s true. It’s not like I can hear you perfectly, you are hard to hear and then if you pace … ”
“OK! I’ll stop pacing! De tal palo, tal astilla,” she murmured.
“What?”
“Nothing. Did you get what I just told you?”
“Yes, I’ll go nuts if I don’t learn to listen to the right kind of spirits. But how can I tell which ones are good spirits and which are bad?”
“I’m getting to that! But first I need you to understand something about the afterlife. Most spirits of the afterlife are not roaming around haunting people and such. For the most part, that is a total farce, a Hollywood thing. The spirits of the dead stay on our side, unless they break the rules or are sent, like me, to watch over someone.
“Cast-outs on the other hand, are the ones that like to impersonate the dead and haunt people … and that type of stuff. They pretend to be disembodied spirits and fool ‘sensitive’ people into doing all kinds of stuff and believing all kinds of things.”
“What are cast-outs?” I asked, remembering the dream and the feelings I had last night when I was talking with Agatha.
“Cast-outs are the ones you need to watch out for, because they also know everything there is to know about you. They know your weaknesses and use them against you. They will say and do anything to make you miserable, and that is all they are after—misery. Not even I am immune to them, so like you, I have to be very careful of who I listen to.”
I nodded remembering last night and how they were so quick to know my own weakness—my past and what happened with my parents. “So what do disembodied spirits, like you, do all day?”
“That, querida, I can’t tell you.”
“Oh, come on! Who am I going to tell? It’s not like I’ll go to any of my friends and tell them that I just had a conversation with my Guardian Angel.”
All was quiet for a moment and I wasn’t sure if she had left or if she was thinking, but then she seemed to sigh, and quite possibly sit next to me, because I felt a chill on my left.
“OK, but this information is for your ears only; comprendes?” I nodded solemnly and, though I’ve never been a scout, I gave her the promise nonetheless.
“The realm of the dead is technically, here,” she said in a low whisper.
“Here as in, here on Earth?” I asked.
“Yes, here on Earth, but mortals can’t see us and we can’t see mortals, unless we get special permission or break a few hundred rules.”
“So, disembodied spirits can cross over into the mortal realm?”
“Technically, yes, but seldom do they do it. There’s simply no need unless we sign up and get Angelic training. Even if disembodied spirits wanted their life back, crossing over into the mortal realm is torturous,” she sighed. “Try to imagine how frustrating it would be for you to be right next to someone you love, yet be completely ignored by them.”
It wasn’t hard for me to picture this; I knew all too well how it felt to be ignored by someone I loved. Alex was ignoring me in much the same way.
“Add to that frustration, the fact that your situation will not change for a long, long time—not until that person dies too! It’s miserable, trust me,” she sounded like she had experience with this, so I simply nodded. “Even I, who have been trained for Angelic work, still struggle with it. For those who manage to slip through without the preparation and the understanding it’s—it’s—Hell.”
“Are you saying that that is what Hell is?”
“That’s one form of Hell. Heaven and Hell are not destinations per-se, not at this point, not before we’re judged. When people die, they die exactly as they were when they were alive. Nothing changes, their thoughts, their fears, their troubles, those all die with them, and their mental anguish does not diminish nor go away simply because they lose their bodies. On the contrary, those problems simply increase! Now they have no body and no way to fix those problems,” she was silent for another long moment, then she continued. “Well, you asked about what we do and then I went off on a tangent.” She made a clicking noise with her tongue in clear disapproval of herself. “You see? I’m going to get in trouble!”
“Sorry.”
“All I can tell you is what I do and nothing more.”
“Fair enough.”
“I learn and work.”
“That’s it?”
“Basically. When I first crossed over, I had a big joyous reunion with all my loved ones that were on that side. We talked and caught up for quite a while, then they showed me around.”
“I thought you said that the other side was here?”
“It is, but it doesn’t look like Earth does now, at least not all of it,” she sighed again, this time with frustration. “He told me it would be difficult, now I see why!”
“Who? What?”
“Shush! Let me think.” She was quiet for a long while and I started tapping my foot impatiently. “I’m doing my best here! It’s just hard to explain things without revealing too much, okay?”
“Okay,” I answered defensively. This Angel was nothing like I would have expected. She treated me with familiarity and contempt. She wasn’t as cryptic as I would have imagined and she brought with her an air of … joviality.
“Where I stay,” she continued treading carefully, “Spirit Earth, there are a lot of schools; universities really. We go to these universities to learn about everything and anything we want to. I recently took a botany class, and attended a lecture and a performance taught by Bach.”
“The Johann Sebastian Bach?” I asked incredulously.
“Yes, of course, who else? You should hear Handel’s ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ in heaven!”
“Wow…I never thought about concerts in heaven. Who else plays?”
“Well, anyone who wants to, I suppose. But my husband and I like a certain type of music, so we only attend those we care to hear.”
“So you and your husband spend your time going to concerts?”
“Tonta, no! We do go to some, but that’s not all we do. I already told you, we go to classes; we learn—intellectually—learn things. You can’t
pick up a new hobby here, but you can intellectually learn all you want. We can take classes from Shakespeare and Cervantes, Cicero, Galileo, Socrates, Mother Teresa, even Moses teaches!”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course! They teach us all they know, plus, they learn from us too! It’s very interesting. But there are limits to what we can learn, and these limits are frustrating. For example, because we have no body, we can’t improve on a skill that would require your physical body. If I were to sit at a spiritual piano, my fingers would not move any faster than they did on the day I died! So progression is limited to those of spiritual and intellectual pursuits.”
“Huh, that’s interesting,” I said succinctly and pondered on that for a while. By now the sun was higher in the sky, and was burning my skin. I looked at my watch and realized that in an hour I would have to be at work. Celeste must have noticed this, because she started pacing again, and complained that we had wasted precious time talking nonsense. “I don’t think it was nonsense, I thought it was interesting!”
“You would! But the problem is that the most important thing for you to know, you don’t yet know. Listen. I was sent to teach you how to tell the difference between good spirits—who, like me are Angels, and the cast-outs. Escuchas?”
“Yes, I hear you.”
“Bien. It’s really rather simple, but you have to focus. The key lies in how you feel inside when spirits or even mortals are around you. Try not to be swayed by what they say or how they present themselves. Look within, how do you feel? While we spoke, how did you feel?”
“I felt good. Happy!”
“Now think back to how you felt when those Cast-outs were after you last night.” I thought and I remember feeling tormented by them. This I told her and she added, that it wouldn’t always be such a stark contrast, but that sometimes it would be subtler; like a general feeling that something is amiss. Then she told me that I needed to work on tuning myself to the right sort of spirits; she said that the more tuned I was to good, the less I would hear the bad ones.
“I don’t know how to do that, Celeste,” I told her flatly.
“Think of it as tuning a radio. Some channels are nothing but static while others come in clear. Spend time tuning into the voices that are clearly good—that make you feel at peace. And when you come across a bad voice, tune it out! Eventually it will become full of static and you’ll avoid it naturally.”
I nodded slowly, trying to digest all that information.
“Oh! One more thing! A voice may come along that sounds … familiar, or even is familiar. The voice might confuse you, or it might not be a voice that makes you feel particularly bad … if this ever happens, just remember, the voice of a good spirit would never interfere with your own life. A Guardian Angel, like me, would never infringe on your life or consume your mortal time. Do you understand?”
“I’m not sure,” I shrugged, feeling overwhelmed by all of it. I waited for a while for her response, but she remained quiet, so quiet and so still that I wasn’t sure anymore if she was still here. “Celeste?”
“Yes, I’m here … I was just … never mind. Listen, all you have to remember is that a good spirit who has been sent from the Eternals, will not ruin your life or demand you spend all your time with them. That would be a haunting, and we good spirits do not haunt mortals.”
The rest of the summer flew by. I worked two jobs and enjoyed the occasional quip from Celeste, who seemed to be on duty quite a bit. She said that cast-outs were after me, now that they knew that I could hear them, and that she was shooing them off for me. At first I found this to be a bit unsettling, but as the weeks wore off, the whole situation seemed more commonplace, and I found Celeste’s company soothing.
The fall and school came by all too soon, and life fell, more or less, back into its usual monotony. This year, I had no Alex to look forward to, so the only thing that kept me motivated to move forward and do something, was my promise to Dorian. Wes and Brandy were inseparable, they loved each other and they emitted a radiant light when they were together. It was good to see them so happy, but I have to admit that sometimes I felt a twinge of jealousy. Not because of Wes, but over their happiness. They tried to include me as much as possible, but being around them all the time could be downright unbearable sometimes; so I would often make up excuses during school, to skip out and be alone. For weekend activities, they stopped trying altogether, after the third month of consecutive turndowns. I was now officially a loner—not just a loner—but a weird loner at that.
Celeste made sure I was thoroughly nagged about this, whenever she came by. With the experience of a lifetime behind her, she pestered me endlessly about needing to go out more and having more fun with my friends. After a while, even she gave up, and eventually took to giving me ideas on my clothes designing. She had lived during the Second World War era, so she had me doing research on clothing from the 30’s and 40’s. I was able to design several pieces based on that time period that I really liked. One of the dresses I made, Brandy’s mom ended up buying. She was one of my most devoted fans, and promised to help me become a designer in any way possible. I wasn’t sure what she could do for me, but it was nice to know that someone out there cared about my future.
Agatha had changed too, since that day that she pulled out the Ouija board for me and revealed to me the whole thing about the voices. She looked ashen and sicklier than ever; she hardly needed to wear her white makeup anymore. She appeared gaunt and had dark purple circles under her eyes. Charlotte even noticed, asking me if I thought Agatha was doing drugs or something. I told her, that I had no clue—which I didn’t. But in fact, I thought I knew what was going on; it was just too creepy to say it out loud. Agatha was being haunted.
Chapter 11
Celeste, who could see clearly what went on in the unseen world of spirits, assured me that those Cast-out spirits constantly surrounded Agatha. These spirits were the true undead, the real devils. The ones whose only goal was to demoralize, depress and ultimately destroy us at any cost. Inevitably, there were times, when they would converge on me with such malicious fortitude that they would succeed in getting through to me, and I would hear them almost as clearly as I heard Celeste. Fortunately, my room was like a sanctuary, and the moment I would step across the threshold of my bedroom, I was safe. Dorian, however, seemed to remain impervious to them; almost as if he carried his own invisible winged giant with him wherever he went.
In the safety of this little bedroom of ours, Dorian and I spent a great deal of time. Here I set up Charlotte’s sewing machine, which, in an unprecedented gesture of kindness, she gifted me. I was very grateful to her for this, because it was a good machine and it would have cost me a lot of money to buy one this good.
To even out the score, I made her a dress that she could wear to church on Sundays. It was a Charlotte dress, not at all something that I would ever consider to my taste, but I knew that she would like it—and she did. This turned over a new leaf in our relationship, and we now regarded each other on more equal footing.
She still wasn’t my mother, she wasn’t my friend, but she was an ally. She no longer took Agatha’s side on everything, and she treated me with more respect and consideration than ever. She was still Charlotte, still looked to the financial side of her foster endeavors, so she still reminded me that once I turned eighteen, I was supposed to be out of her house.
She did concede to let me stay until graduation day, because I would turn eighteen a few months before school let out. But she was planning on having more foster kids come the moment I was gone, so I would have to vacate on that precise day.
“I’ve missed you,” Alex crooned. I was standing inside a room I'd never been in. It was sparsely decorated in shades of blue-gray in a modern minimalist way. I looked around and saw clues that led me to believe that perhaps this was Alex’s bedroom.
“I’ve missed you too.” More than words could say. Even in dream form he seemed so real. He moved like Alex,
he talked and acted just like him, and I had no clue what he was about to say. If dreams are part of my imagination, shouldn’t I be able to change them?
A wild thought crossed my mind and I thought I would test this theory of mine. He was following me with his eyes and he seemed to be questioning my impish look.
“I just found out I can hear spirits,” I blurted out.
His eyebrows shot up, then came down, forming a frown. “What do you mean by spirits?”
“Just that. I hear voices from other realms of existence. Today, I had a whole conversation with my Guardian Angel. Her name is Celeste.” I sat down on the edge of his bed and crossed my legs while reclining back onto his mattress. “Oh, and get this! Dorian drew her!”
“You mean the picture of that lady you told me about?”
“What?” How did he know about that? Oh, that’s right! I told the real Alex that Dorian had drawn me a picture of a woman, after he asked me about “Estelle … ”
“That’s right, he drew my great-grandmother, Estelle. So how do you know that the lady in the picture is your Guardian Angel?”
“She told me. She tells me lots of things, all the time! In fact, she won’t shut-up. She nags and nags and bosses me around all day long.”
Alex started laughing. “That doesn’t sound like fun. I wonder if I have a Guardian Angel?”
“I’m sure you do. Next time I see you in real life, I’ll tune in and see who turns up.”
“You’re serious.”
“Very.” Then I did get serious. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
He paced the space right at the foot of his bed a few times, as he mulled the question over in his head. I watched him with interest, having no idea what he was about to say, but wishing he would say, “no, you’re not crazy.” Instead he crossed his arms over his chest and tapped his lips with one finger. “My sister says she can understand animals,” he said suddenly, taking me by complete surprise. I had no clue he would say that. “One summer, when we were kids, we went outside with nets and glass jars to catch butterflies. I caught a whole bunch and handed them to her, because she was crazy about them.” He paused and looked at me with one eyebrow raised. “She grabbed the glass jar full of fluttering butterflies and she dropped it! Then put her hands up to her ears and started screaming, saying that the butterflies were shrieking and crying!