“None!” she corrected.
“OK, no experience in these matters, but I still think you should tell him.”
“You don’t understand, Tess. Even if I told him, even if he felt the same way I did, it could never be.” A tear was forming in the corner of her eye.
“Why? If I have learned anything so far is that anything is possible.”
“Easy for you to say, Tess. Your experiences have come mostly from watching couples who are both Human! Kerubiel is a Cherub and I am a Seraph, we are from different species. We can’t … It just can’t be done.”
“But surely the Eternals know how you must feel?”
“If They do, They have said nothing concerning the matter, which only supports my point. It cannot be done!”
“Have you asked Them?” I asked incredulously.
She looked aghast. “Of course not! What, you think I should just go up to them and say: ‘Excuse me, may I have special permission to mate with a Cherub? Oh, and while you are at it, would you tell me how it can be done?’”
I chuckled. She shook her head and rolled her eyes.
“Besides, he probably doesn’t even feel the same way I do, so there’s no point in asking.” She paused and her misery seemed to increase to an unbearable point.
“Remember when I told you about my life?”
“Yes.”
“After my brother died, I was able to secure a peace treaty with the leader of the Cherub military forces. He was not what I had expected, he actually asked to meet with me. Even though he was accustomed to war, and was a master strategist, he didn’t like the senseless loss of life this war had come to be.
“I was pretty tired of it myself, I had lost everyone I had ever loved in this war and wanted to either die myself or have peace once and for all—I didn’t even care if we were slaves to them—I wanted the fighting to end. So I agreed to meet with him.
“I knew it was wrong, but the moment I saw him…I think I loved him. My enemy! What a traitor I was!
“As he spoke of a peaceful end to this war I loved him all the more, but I was cold to him, rude even—I didn’t want to betray the feelings I had for him.
“He was patient with me. He ignored all the snide remarks and the cool treatment with dignity. In the end we were able to reach an agreement and the war ended. With the excuse of keeping diplomatic relations healthy, we saw each other often. He received me in his planet, his home even.
“We both lived a long life and our friendship grew, this only stabilized the state of affairs between our planets even further. By the end of our mortality the two planets had pretty much gotten over the social friction, and a new era of friendship and free exchange had begun. This never ended, our planets became allies, and remained that way until they both expired.”
“We were hailed as heroes from that time on, and eventually became legends. Stories were written and theatrical performances as well, in some of them they made us out to be secretly in love.” She chuckled with irony at the last comment. “Little did they know…. Well, that’s how I felt anyway, he never showed any sign of returning that same feeling.” Dayspring was quiet and too lost in her own wretchedness to notice, but I did.
Kerubiel was looking straight at us from a distance. His usually cheerful face was serious and fixed on Dayspring’s form. I focused all my energy into reading his feelings, but my exertion was not necessary. The legend was true, he loved her as well.
“Tell her,” I said through my thoughts, hoping that he would hear me.
Suddenly he turned his face and looked at me. His countenance looked dangerous, like I’d never seen it before—his secret was out and he felt exposed—then his face softened.
“I will,” he answered.
* * * * *
Chapter 42
I knew my time here was up. I could actually feel the Veil looming over me, but I no longer feared it the way I used to. I was now certain that somehow things will work out. I also knew myself a little better and looked forward to experiencing all the things that I’d seen others experience—the warmth of sun light on my skin, the smell of a flower, an embrace, a kiss…
We soon made our slow march toward the Veil. Once there we could see clusters of spirits, who like us were about to cross over.
“How do we know when it’s our turn to step in?” Dorian asked while looking around for flashing signs or someone who looked to be in charge.
“Well…when Dane left, he just seemed to know it was his turn. I bet the Eternals just told him to go,” Alex answered, and then looked at me with curiosity, I was pacing impatiently. “What are you so worried about?”
“I wonder who will be assigned as our Guardian Angels. I hope they know we want to be together,” I told him.
I hoped to see surety in Alex’s face, instead he mirrored my worry. “It’s true…we knew who they wanted to be with, who do we have that remembers us?” His eyes darted to Katie.
“Don’t look at us, we are right behind you,” Katie said, pointing to Jase and herself.
“We need to warn someone,” I said.
“Who?” Alex asked.
I started pacing again; trying to think of options.
“Celeste! She will be around,” Dorian said calmly.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I saw her! Hovering over you,” he said with a knowing look.
“She’s going to be my Angel?” I said rushing to his side and hugging him.
“OK…so we just have to warn her then,” Alex suggested.
“How?” both Dorian and I asked. Celeste couldn’t see us, she would never understand.
“Luz!” Alex said a little too loud, and a group of spirits who were nearby turned to look at us.
“What about her?” Dorian asked with a pang to his aura color.
“Luz, is her daughter, right?” Alex began, but Dorian shook his head emphatically.
“She’s not the right person.” his voice was sad and a little protective. Not only had Luz been born way before Dorian, but she was born with a major disability, that would no doubt make it hard for her to understand what we were trying to say to her.
“I know!” Alex said. “Estelle, she’s still alive, and should still remember us!”
“Perfect! Let’s go, we are literally running out of time,” I grabbed them both by the arms and started pulling.
“Tess…there is the problem of…how would we find her?” Dorian said as he was being pulled.
“Oh, yeah.” I stopped. “Why does this have to be so hard?” I whined.
“It doesn’t have to be!” Katie’s bright voice came from behind me. “I happen to know that she is with Valerie right now.” Then she looked significantly at Alex. “She came to see the birth of a child!”
Alex looked ashen, even for a spirit. We were very much running out of time, but this had to be done, so we all took off like comets.
The whole clan was behind me…or what was left of it I should say. The thrill of one last adventure in Heaven and the fact that we were really pushing our luck this time made it very exciting. I could see it in their auras.
Dorian always flew the fastest; I couldn’t fathom how he did it. He was the first one to arrive at the Preston residence. Upstairs, we found Valerie, who was lying down, her stomach swollen to a great mass. Her face was white as chalk and looked like she was in pain. Dane was sitting on the floor, his face was leaning on the bed, looking helpless. Nancy was holding Valerie’s hand with one hand and checking her watch with the other.
Sitting quietly in one corner of the room was a very old and dignified looking Estelle, who was busy knitting a blanket. She looked up at us the moment we entered the room, she looked alarmed for a moment, but then smiled broadly. She didn’t say anything, she simply got up and walked out of the room and, with a quick swift motion, told us to follow her.
We crowded into the bathroom, and she closed the door.
“It’s you again…” she said in a breezy vo
ice. “I thought…well…”
Meanwhile, Dorian, Katie, Jase, Alex, and I were all stuffed into the little bathroom with Estelle, who seemed used to the sight of spirits by now.
“Estelle? We need to ask a favor of you. I know this is not the best time to ask this of you…but I’m running out of time,” Alex said hurriedly.
Estelle looked worried. “Of course, I would be happy to help you with anything you ask.”
I pushed my way forward and stood next to Alex.
“Well…when you get to the other side…there will be a spirit there that will be Tess’s Guardian Angel,” he began and felt silly the moment he started to speak.
Estelle frowned a little.
“I—I’m sorry to have to ask you this now but…” He tried to explain tactfully, but his request was not coming out right. “Her name is Celeste. She needs to know that…that.”
“That we want to be together,” I finished for him.
Estelle smiled broadly at us. “I figured that.”
“I don’t know how you can find her, but…” Alex felt ridiculous again, but it had to be done.
“I’ll remember,” she said sweetly. “Celeste,” she added with a nod. “I will look for her the moment I get to the other side.”
Alex gave her a silly smile, knowing that what we had just asked her was kind of crass.
“Don’t worry…it’s the way of nature. Here you are, about to come into this life… and I am about to exit it. I’m not afraid,” she assured him.
“That’s it!” Nancy announced from the room. “Five minutes apart, we have to go.”
“I better go!” Estelle said and tried to avoid the rest of us as she walked out of the bathroom. “And you better go too!” she said as she hurried down the hall.
Dane rushed out of the room and nearly knocked Estelle over. After apologizing to her, he ran down the hall and down the stairs.
“I’ll get the bag!” he yelled.
Nancy shook her head. “Men…” she said as she lifted the bag. “Come on, honey, I’ll help you up.”
As Valerie maneuvered her large belly into a sitting position, Katie petted a cat that lay sleeping on a chair. The cat got spooked and meowed loudly while all its hairs stood on end.
“Cutting it close aren’t we, Alex?” Dorian said.
“Yes! We better go.” He turned to leave, but turned back. “Oh…and Estelle…”
“Yes?” she said out loud, forgetting herself.
“Could you tell them to name the baby, Alex?”
She smiled and pointed to the bag that Nancy was holding. Embroidered on it was the word “Alex”.
“She picked the name herself. I had nothing to do with it, apparently you get around,” Estelle whispered. Nancy and Valerie shot Estelle a quizzical look, then, shook their heads with resignation—the old lady was talking to herself again.
Alex smiled and waved goodbye. I did too, and we were off.
“Where have you been?” Dayspring said the moment we got back.
“We had one last thing to do,” I said while trying to figure out why she looked different.
“You left me no time to say goodbye! You have to go…there’s no time! Too bad I had some news…” she pointed with her eyes toward Kerubiel, who was shaking hands with Alex and Dorian. He too looked slightly different, but I couldn’t figure out exactly how.
“What news?” I asked.
“The story is long you know…but you left me no choice but to narrow it down to the basics.”
I raised my eyebrows with anticipation. “OK, so tell me!”
“After you left me feeling like an idiot, he snuck up on me and told me that he loved me. He was so quiet I almost thought I had imagined it. But I turned and he was standing there looking a little embarrassed,” she said with a mocking smile.
I looked at her eagerly.
“We had a long talk as you can imagine, and it turns out he fell in love with me on that same day—you know the day we met to sign the peace treaty. Can you believe it, Tess? This whole time…we really are idiots!”
“I knew that!” I said, and Dayspring gave me one of her more menacing looks. “The part about you two being in love all along,” I corrected, and she relaxed her features.
“Well we decided to take our plight up to the Eternals. We weren’t sure what they were going to say. I was so embarrassed, Kerubiel did all the talking.”
“So…what did they say?”
“They asked us what we wanted to do. And Kerubiel said that he wanted to marry me. He hadn’t even asked me yet! I would have said yes of course, but that’s beside the point.”
“And did they say you could?”
“Yes, they did! And they were kind of laughing at us too, as if this whole thing was humorous to them. They said they weren’t surprised and in fact were wondering how long it would take us to get together.”
“Really, so they knew?”
“Yes, they knew, they always know.”
“So what about the…you know…the compatibility issue?”
“Well that’s the really embarrassing part. We just stood there, neither one of us wanted to ask. So they saved us the trouble and answered through the link. It was better that way.”
“So…there are no problems then?”
She looked uncomfortable for a moment and shifted her weight. “We had some minor changes done…but they are all done and we are good to go,” she said with dignity.
I chuckled. “You two were born to be legends weren’t you?”
“I guess so,” Kerubiel said. He was now standing behind Dayspring and both Alex and Dorian had a confused look on their faces, but that soon changed when they saw Kerubiel wrapping his arms around Dayspring’s shoulders.
They were stunned actually, staring open mouthed at the unlikely couple.
“We better get used to this reaction,” Dayspring said to Kerubiel, who didn’t seem to be bothered by the looks they were getting.
“I actually like it!” Kerubiel said as he gave Dayspring a kiss on the cheek. “Did she say yes?”
“I haven’t asked her yet,” Dayspring mumbled.
“Asked what?”
“I wanted you to be my Issa’ahot at my wedding.”
“What’s a Issa’ahot?”
“Well our wedding will be a mix between the two worlds—so you’ll have to help me find a dress, then walk in front of me at the wedding ceremony while throwing white feathers into the air, so that I will be thoroughly covered in white feathers before I get to the altar—there are more duties too…but I’ll tell you about it later.”
“That’s beautiful Dayspring, I would love to do it! But…” Now I realized why she was so annoyed at my delay, there was no time now for me to attend her wedding and I was pretty sure I should be walking into the Veil right now.
“Don’t worry about it, Tess, I wasn’t planning on getting married so soon. I mean…I want to....” she smiled at Kerubiel. “But we have waited this long…and I want to have a big wedding. We want all our loved ones to be there, and it will take a while to get them used to the idea of us being together. Besides, your life will not take that long—I’ll wait until you die. It might even take us longer than that!” she said brightly as if it was all so simple.
“But…I won’t remember you.”
“Bah!” she said dismissively. “We’ll be friends again, this won’t get between us.” She pointed to the Veil. “I’ll bring you up to speed after you die.”
“OK…if you say so,” I said. Her casual approach to my mortality was somewhat unsettling, but I couldn’t blame her. She was in love, for the first time in the many thousands of conscious years of existence.
I leaned over and gave her a big hug. I wished her good luck in her wedding preparations and told her she only had eighty to ninety years to do it.
“You take care of her Alex,” she said as she released me. “We can’t have her back until this wedding is perfect and I’ll need at least that long,
maybe longer.”
“You’ll have me back, before you have her,” he promised.
“It’s time.” I must not have been the only one to hear it, because Alex and Dorian both stiffened at the same time.
Alex extended his hand and I took it. I looked back for one last time. Dayspring was still in Kerubiel’s arms and she was waving to me goodbye. Katie and Jase were also by the Veil, holding hands.
“We are right behind you,” Katie said as she waved at us with her free hand.
I waved back, I felt as if I were in a trance. Dorian was next to us, I extended my free hand and he took it.
We gave each other one last look.
Dorian smiled. “On three!”
* * * * *
Chapter 43
Being inside the Veil was like nothing I had ever experienced. We were engulfed in whiteness. It wasn’t bright like looking into a sun, it was just plain white. I turned to look at Alex and he seemed to be a lot further out than arm’s length, same with Dorian.
There were ripples of thicker whiteness that seemed to float all around me. They gave the impression that we were moving forward.
“Are we moving?” I asked, and my voice sounded strange.
“I’m not making myself move,” Dorian said. His voice also sounded strange.
“I’m not willing myself forward either, but I think we are moving forward…or something,” Alex said, and he looked at me with a disoriented kind of look.
We continued in silence for a while and then Dorian let go of my hand.
“No!” I screamed, my voice sounded void of my usual tenor. “Don’t let go…”
I turned to look at Dorian, who looked confused. He looked around, then back at me with my outstretched hand and tried to reach it, but the gap between us was too wide. He tried to move his legs, but they wouldn’t let him advance.
“It’s OK, I’ll be fine…I’ll see you soon!” he said with a smile.
“No! Please!” But the whiteness was getting thicker and his form kept getting fainter and fainter. “I won’t forget you,” I promised, but even as I said that I was having a hard time remembering who or what...
Veiled Page 33