Veiled

by Silvina Niccum

  In the background one of the windows was re-playing the same news update, for what seemed like the hundredth time.

  “I am outside the Gift of Tongues building, at the scene of yet another disappearance. This time the one to disappear was a highly trained Sentinel by the name of Suy. He was last seen by his professor…”

  Alex knew that he was being followed and he feared that all of this was somehow connected with Henry. He had to warn Tess, and he had to warn the rest of his clan, but he couldn’t call them while they were on a mission.

  His own pendant was glowing, and could not be ignored anymore. He left for training frustrated and disappointed, but not before he set a piece of parchment on the seat where his clan usually met.

  As he exited the Angelic Missions building he paused to look at all the spirits that were around him. Then he proceeded to his training class with the Cherubs. As soon as he left, two spirits who had been chatting nearby, seemingly uninterested in him, stopped their conversation abruptly and followed him at a safe distance.

  Meanwhile, Tess and Katie made their descent down the steps of the same building, and hurried inside to look at the billboard.

  *****

  “Everyone is busy!” Katie said disappointed.

  “Wait a minute, why can’t I see Luz’s name anywhere?” I wondered.

  “Paz and Amor are gone too!”

  I immediately checked Dorian’s status, and he was on a Guardian Mission. But as we walked to the lobby I realized that if Luz left, Dorian would be about to leave as well, unless….

  “Tess…I think this is for you,” Katie said as she handed me a piece of parchment.

  Tess we are being followed. Be careful and call me as soon as you can — telepathically of course.

  Alex

  I tried to connect with Alex, but to my surprise I could not. This worried me, because it had never happened before. Unless he was on Earth—but I didn’t think that distance would make a difference, it didn’t to the Eternals.

  As I read the note I overheard one of the windows. There was an Angel reporting on the disappearance of a Sentinel, and not just him but many other spirits had gone missing lately. I immediately panicked. What if Alex had disappeared as well?

  I turned to talk to Katie, but she was running toward a short, but well built and handsome looking spirit with a quirky smirk on his face.

  “Jase!” Katie said and ran into his arms.

  I liked him at once. His inner aura had a nice greenish-bluish hue to it, and the outside irradiated the same color as Katie’s—bright love.

  Katie came over and introduced me to Jase and after this brief meeting, they left for their next assignment together. They were taking a class on sea creatures that they had been on a waiting list for. They left hand in hand and oblivious to all except each other.

  I looked down at my own pendant, on it glowed a long list of classes. But I was resolved to try Alex and find him before I went to anywhere.

  “Alex?” I pleaded, “please answer me!”

  “Oh… finally, Tess, I thought I was going to go crazy. Are you OK?”

  “Yes. Why didn’t you answer before?”

  “Because I’m at Herald training and we are practicing the whole clear your thoughts and go to a happy place thing—apparently I blocked you as well.”

  “No telepathic communications please,” Kerubiel’s sonorous voice resounded in my head. “Tell Tess that she can call you after class.”

  “She can hear you,” Alex pointed out.

  “She can? That’s cool!” Kerubiel said with sudden interest, and then started to ask Alex all sorts of questions about our mini-link.

  “Just be careful,” was all Alex could say, in between his verbal communication with Kerubiel.

  Alex was right, we were being followed. I could sense two specific spirits trailing me. I didn’t recognize them, and though they were sloppy at hiding their thoughts from me, they were still able to conceal themselves visually pretty well. I did the same, and lost them quite easily, but because I had to go to class, they eventually found me again. But once I was back in my Gifts class my attention shifted to something that looked more pressing—Irene’s and Leo’s auras.

  “You are leaving?” I said, rather surprised at how sad they looked.

  “Yes,” Irene said, melancholy.

  “Have you checked on Celeste lately?” I said trying to lighten up the mood, but instead my comment seemed to make it worse. Leo looked away and Irene looked at me apologetically.

  “Max is dead,” Irene said.

  My eyes must have grown twice their size and my head started shaking instinctively. No words would come, and Leo looked back at me mirroring the same feelings.

  “I thought…that he would be my father. I’ve been counting on that, I was his Guardian…I know him so well.”

  I tried to think of something to say that would cheer him up or make him feel assured somehow, but nothing came to mind. Then class started and we couldn’t talk about it anymore.

  After class I glided with Irene and Leo to the Veil. They would be the first spirits I actually got to say goodbye to. It was a somber affair for us. I told Leo that perhaps Max would be assigned as his own Guardian Angel, and that with his ability as a clairvoyant, he might even get to see him. This thought seemed to give him a little encouragement and after he held Irene and whispered things in her ear, they stepped through the great mass of white that would erase me and each other from their memories.

  There were other spirits at the Veil, most of them were happy and celebrating, others looked more nervous, but none were sad—for most spirits this was a much awaited time.

  I turned to leave, when out of the corner of my eye I saw two spirits coming toward me. I watched as they came closer. They were happy, eager, sure of themselves, and ready.

  “You came to see us off!” Valerie said, touched by my presence.

  I remained silent, recovering from the shock of seeing them here.

  “I can’t believe it’s time,” I said lamely.

  “We all knew it would come sooner or later,” Dane said and put his arm around my shoulder, patting it slightly.

  In the distance I saw Katie approaching with Jase happily attached to her hand.

  “I am so thrilled for you guys!” Katie said as she released Jase and wrapped her arms around Dane and Valerie. The three of them had gotten quite close since Katie joined us. Then Katie introduced Jase to Valerie and Dane, and they all chatted excitedly for a while.

  Alex skidded to a stop right in the middle of our gathering and hugged Valerie while he shot me a wink over her shoulder. He hugged Dane, then came to my side and gave me a long kiss amid protests and jeers from the others.

  “We are so happy to see you all here, and we hope to see you soon on the other side!” Dane said while pulling Valerie toward the Veil. “I’m afraid though that we might mess something up if we don’t leave right now.”

  “I love you all!” Valerie said in an uncharacteristic sentimental tone.

  I threw myself in her arms one more time and Katie did too.

  “We’ll see you soon!” Katie yelled after their disappearing forms.

  Valerie was still looking back at us and then the whiteness engulfed her.

  “Sooner than you think,” Katie responded and we all turned to look at her.

  She was holding her pendant in her hands and lifted it up for us to see. Alex’s pendant was glowing as well and after reading it he looked back up with a jerk.

  “Well…what does it say?” I asked impatiently.

  “I’m Dane’s Guardian Angel,” Katie said with a giddy smile.

  “And I’m Valerie’s,” Alex said, astonished.

  As they celebrated the fact that they would get to watch over Dane and Valerie, I looked back toward the Veil. That thick wall of whiteness before me looked so harmless, yet I was very much afraid of it. The moment I stepped through it, I would lose everything I knew—every memory, every
thought, every ounce of knowledge. What was I if not a compilation of my knowledge? What would be left of me once the Veil took it all? Who was I really?

  I’ve never professed to have premonitions, but at that moment I knew with certainty that the next time I came to the Veil it would be for my own departure.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 33

  Between classes I snuck off to see Alex, but once I was done taking all of them, I got assigned to work as a Sentinel with another spirit, so my escapades to Earth had to stop. My partner’s name was Robyn and she reminded me a lot of Valerie for some reason. She wasn’t quite as cynical as Valerie was, but…there was something about her that just reminded me of her.

  We had been assigned to find the missing Sentinel named Suy I’d heard about earlier. Robyn took this mission very seriously because some of her clan members had disappeared mysteriously as well, and I hated the thought that one of my own clan members might have been responsible for this.

  Ever since I paired up with her, the minions that Agatha sent to follow me were nowhere to be found. Robyn suggested that perhaps they knew we were coming after them, so they were laying low.

  Being a Sentinel was great! We had great freedom, and we could follow our own leads and to go anywhere—here in this spirit world, Earth, or anywhere else for that matter. We started our investigation at the Gift of Interpretations building from where the Sentinel had disappeared, not long ago.

  “Tess! Tess! Please answer! I can’t leave my post, you have to come here I need your help!” Alex’s voice sounded strained and pleading through the calling stone.

  “What’s wrong Alex?” I linked with him right away.

  “It’s Valerie. She…” he paused, unable to continue with words, but I saw what his mind was showing me. It was Valerie, passed out on the floor of her bathroom, and blood all over.

  “I have to go,” I told Robyn as I started flying toward the first window or door that would get me to Earth. “It’s an emergency…I’ll tell you later,” I told her as I flew away.

  “Take all the time you need,” she responded. “You know where I’ll be.”

  “I’m on my way,” I told Alex, afraid to ask the next question.

  Since Alex had been called as a Guardian Angel to Valerie, and Katie was over Dane, we had been able to put a pretty good generation line together. Russell and Nancy were Valerie’s parents, and that meant that Alex would be Valerie’s son. So now the stakes of his job had gotten a lot higher. He saw Valerie in a whole new light and seeing her safe through adulthood was a task he took very seriously.

  Valerie had been a spirited child. She felt things too intensely and she always seemed to be either one extreme or the other. If she was happy she was exuberant, if she was sad, the world was coming to an end. But this…what could this mean?

  “She did sign up for a special mission,” Alex said, his voice hollow.

  “That’s right! I wonder if this has something to do with that.”

  “It seems unlikely. She hasn’t displayed any signs of…major problems,” he said, dismayed.

  “That we know of. Do you remember the Special Missions class? Remember the long list of mental illnesses that were hard—almost impossible to detect? What if she has one of those? What if she’s always suffered from something silently and now it got too hard for her. What if she is tired of fighting on her own?” I said as I made my way to them.

  “You have a point. We are at the hospital, Tess. I’ll follow the doctors around. You stay with Russell and Nancy, they are freaking out.”

  I told him I would and we disconnected.

  Once I got to the hospital the sight of Nancy was too much to bear. Her beautiful blue eyes were bloodshot, puffy and red.

  Hovering next to a pillar was a Cast-out. It was odd to see one so still. Usually they moved around so fast, wreaking havoc as they went. Her dark gray, wispy, fog-like tendrils floated out of her like newly extinguished flames. She looked exultant and daring as she fixed her gaze on me. As soon as she made sure she had my attention, she disappeared into thin air.

  I watched the spot where she had been. I had recognized her, her name was Joanna and I was sure that she was behind Valerie’s problems, that’s what she meant by having me look at her—she was bragging.

  I felt something vicious and sneering pass by me, and I knew she was still around.

  “What did you say to her?” I demanded. She paused for an instant right in front of me and looked like a cobra ready to strike.

  “What do you want from me, Tess?” she hissed in my ear. “You can’t stop me from roaming these halls.”

  “What did you say to her?” I repeated, my voice was low and steady with an edge to it.

  “What, to Valerie?” she sneered.

  “Yes, to Valerie,” I said, holding my ground as the shadow twisted around my form.

  “Nothing, just the usual. It was easy really…too easy. It was boring,” she said nonchalantly.

  I turned around and left her, and she didn’t pursue. She was telling the truth. Even with all the darkness that surrounded Joanna I could still discern the truth in her statement.

  Back at the waiting room, Russell held Nancy tightly against his chest, making it impossible for her to move or yell. She struggled against his grip for a while, and then finally gave up, and she began to sob.

  I hurried to their side and put my arms around them. I assured them that everything would be OK, that Valerie had an important mission to fulfill in her life and that she would finish it. I could tell that they felt something, because Nancy’s sobs slowed and Russell’s hard expression softened.

  I saw Alex coming around the corner, following a grave looking Doctor. “They think that she needs psychiatric help. That she is suicidal and needs to be institutionalized until they can be sure that she will be of no threat to herself or others.” Alex’s voice sounded heavy with dread. “Tess, this is horrible! And I thought that watching Henry slowly numb his brains to death was bad! Valerie! Valerie, Tess! Of all people, Valerie ends up being suicidal? I never saw it coming, not for a second!” He dropped his head on my shoulder and held me tightly.

  “No one did,” I added, trying to soothe him.

  We glided back to Valerie’s room. She was attached to all kinds of tubes and her left wrist had a thick bandage over it. His guilt over letting this happen to Valerie on his watch was more than he could stand, and we silently stayed linked while we watched the course of events unfold.

  A week later, Valerie was being admitted to a Psychiatric Hospital. Still we watched, as a grief stricken Russell and a frail looking Nancy settled their only daughter into her new room.

  No one spoke much those days, so I indulged Alex in what everyone was feeling and not sharing. Valerie’s thoughts were a bit groggy from the medication they had her on; but now and then a thought would escape and I was able to piece together a general feeling—sorrow. Sorrow for the heartache she caused her parents and sorrow for her unexplainable thoughts. She tried hard not to think of that day, her feelings were too fresh and she knew that there was no way to fix that now. All she knew was that she would hurt her parents with her death, and she would be miserable for ever if she stayed as she was. She searched for answers in her head, but none came, she felt trapped.

  Something had to give, something had to happen and she hoped that she would find these answers here. But these hopes were shattered the minute she stepped through that door and saw who she would be spending the summer with. Panic choked her as she walked the white halls and the other residents looked back at her with long stares.

  “What if I turn out just like them? What if they say I am crazy and leave me here to rot?” she thought, and her thoughts started to race so fast that I couldn’t keep up. She wouldn’t finish one thought before another one would begin. Her feelings, mood and thoughts made no sense at all after that.

  Alex shook his head. “Why did the Eternals have to assign me to her? They should have sent
you instead. This would have never happened if you had been there. You would have known that there was something wrong with her and they would have been able to do something about it sooner.”

  “That’s not true. I have been here off and on, and I never saw this,” I corrected.

  Valerie’s long dark hair hung limply on either side of her pale face. She had dark circles under her eyes and the bandage underneath her shirt bulged enough to be noticed by all there. It was the dead giveaway of the suicidal patients.

  Alex was in no mood to talk to any of the other spirits who roamed the halls, much like we did. They must have gotten the hint from the scowl on his face because they all glided around us, leaving us undisturbed. We hovered close to Valerie following her every step, until she finally sat down and slouched in an overstuffed chair that overlooked the gardens.

  “Hard to believe this is the same girl who not too long ago was an Angel, helping other mortals sort out their own sordid lives,” Alex said out loud, his voice grave.

  “She’s in there somewhere, she just needs to find that Valerie,” I added with confidence.

  We watched and followed Valerie for another week. She talked to no one, made no comments during group sessions and only gave monosyllabic answers to her psychiatrist during their one-on-one meetings. I told Alex that she wasn’t being stubborn. She was just afraid to say the wrong thing and be made to stay there longer. Her emotions were a range of highs and lows in such a short period of time that she never really knew how she felt half the time.

  On Sunday, she grew anxious over the impending visit of her parents. This anxiety caused her to fidget quite a bit. Suddenly an itch developed on her thumb, right next to the nail. She attacked that itch until her thumb bled. Then the itch moved on to the other thumb and she started on that one as well, and before too long all her fingers were bleeding.