by S. B. Niccum
Eugenia had forgotten all about that day, never thought of it again in her life, until now. Yet Alex had held that memory as his best of her. Why? What was it about her that day that made him remember her with fondness?
Looking away, she felt a pang of guilt, remorse, and anger, all mixed together. She was responsible for his death and the weight of this hung heavy on her, like an anvil on her chest that restricted her breathing—an odd sensation to have, since she had no body—yet the feeling was quite keen and poignant. She hadn’t meant to, it was a moment of stupidity—okay maybe not just one moment, several perhaps—but she had not meant to cause him harm. Yet the facts remained, she had ended the life of the one person who had been a true friend to her. Even if the hired gunman had gotten the intended target—Tess—she would have still ended his life. She could see that now; he didn’t just love Tess, he adored her.
“Why couldn’t I be loved like that?” she thought bitterly and her hate for Tess came back threefold. “Why couldn’t I find someone who adored me? I was pretty, intelligent, rich. Even Agatha found someone, cold as she was, average looking, and creepy to boot! Yet she found someone who worshiped her! But not me, why? What was wrong with me? What is wrong with me?”
Anger boiled inside until she was filled with it. “To Hell with Alex and Tess! To Hell with all of them!” she cursed out loud, wanting to give in to the fullness of her rage, yet she couldn’t, not fully. There was another part of her, a small part, wedged somewhere deep inside of her that ached. She didn’t know why or what it was. But that twinge of guilt, or remorse or…whatever it was, made the whole thing simply unbearable.
While she was alive, she could numb or alleviate those feelings with medication, or alcohol—something she resorted to often. But now, there was nothing of that sort to rely on. She had to deal with her conscience head on, or go back to making her own bubble. But even that bubble didn’t count as an escape, because deep down she always knew she was daydreaming. She was tired of pretending, she was tired of escaping, and she was ready to move on. The question was, how?
“My bubble is very thin so I heard you. Are you okay?” a man called from a floating living room. He looked rough, long hair, long beard, a leather vest, and tattoos all up and down his bare arms. The man’s “living room” looked incongruent with his looks; it was refined, high class, with red velvet high-back chairs, a library full of books, a roaring fire on an stone hearth, and a full length mirror perched off to one side.
Eugenia looked at him and snubbed him at once with a shrug of her shoulder, just like she would have when a guy she thought was way below her standards paid her any attention. Quickly, though, she remembered that her standards should perhaps be a lot lower now. Maybe she should change her position on who she befriended. Giving one last look at Alex’s bubble, she bitterly glided over to the man’s side. “As fine as anyone could be here,” she answered dryly.
“Aye,” the man acknowledged with an accent that caught Eugenia by surprise. “Been ‘ere long?”
“Don’t know. It sure feels that way.”
“Please come in,” the man said, with a sweeping motion into his make-believe living room.
“Was this your home in life?”
“No,” the man said, pronouncing the ‘o’ with the hint of an Irish accent. “But it’s what I would have liked to have if I could have afforded it.”
“Mm,” Eugenia instinctively said with derision, and once again had to check herself because things were different now. She was no longer pretty, she was no longer rich, and she was no longer anything special.
“How come you were just standing there? Didn’t you protect yourself?”
“If by protecting myself you mean forming a bubble, I did. But reality burst it,” Eugenia said bitterly.
“Ah! Reality,” the man turned to the mirror and looked in it. “I often wonder what that is.”
“Are you obsessed with yourself or what?”
The man smiled and looked just a bit handsome for a moment. “I’m not checking to see if I look pretty.”
“Then what?”
“Tell me, what do you see when you look at me?”
“A man.”
“Obviously,” he said impatiently. “But what else?”
“I see…” Eugenia stood up from one of the velvet chairs and glided up to him for a better inspection. She rattled off all the obvious faults that the man had—his long hair, his unkempt beard, his ugly vest, his many tattoos—but then, when she looked into his eyes she saw something else. “I see, I see…”
“What? What do you see?” the man asked eagerly.
“That there’s more to you.”
The man looked back at Eugenia and said nothing for a while. “There’s more to you too,” he finally concluded. Surprised, Eugenia took a step back, catching her breath, more out of habit than physical necessity.
“I deserve to be here, you know. I hired a man to take the life of another person,” Eugenia confessed and her new friend sat on one of his chairs, looking interested in whatever she had to say. “I never gave death and the afterlife much thought while alive, none at all actually, but the moment I passed and felt that darkness was engulfing me, I knew,” she laughed cynically. “I knew I was in for it, then. This was reckoning time for me. Somehow I managed to fall far below even my own expectations. How did I do it?”
“I ask myself that question all the time,” the man muttered dryly. They both stared at each other in silence for a long time, each secretly wondering if something good could ever come out of this Hell.
Chapter 8
Talk about expanding my horizons! Dayspring gives me the honor of designing her dress and the wedding is to take place at sunset. At sunset!
In her planet, they keep time much like on Earth, by the rotations of their planet around the sun. The only difference is that their sun is much larger, and their planet is also much bigger than Earth, so their days have thirty hours in them instead of twenty-four. It is now noon by their time, and somehow I have to design, make, and fit her dress all before nightfall.
I have to account for wings, hind legs, and a tail. I have to take into consideration the cultural traditions of two species, Cherubs and Seraphs. And most importantly, I have to make her look stunning for her big day. And when I say big, I mean BIG! Thousands of Cherubs and Seraphs have been invited; this is to be the equivalent of a royal wedding. Yep. No pressure.
“Stop pacing! You’re making me nervous,” Dayspring barks.
“Nervous! You just sprang this on me!”
“You don’t think you can do it?” she challenges, and I stare at her for a while, simmering in my own frustration.
I pace in silence a few more times, when suddenly it hits me! Narrowing my eyes, I walk in circles all around her to make sure that my idea would fit all the…requirements.
“What? What is it? Did you get an idea?”
“Shush…I’m thinking!”
“Did she just shush me?” Dayspring asks someone from her entourage. “I’ve never been shushed before.”
“Hush!”
I have to admit it when I’m brilliant. Once I was able to convey my idea to the Seraph seamstresses that Dayspring had appointed to help me, we set out to work. I was able to show them my idea, by projecting my vision of the dress—in the same way that people who made-up those bubbles back in Prison did—by way of a 3D version of Dayspring, wearing my imaginary dress. When the seamstresses saw what I was thinking, they stood openmouthed for a few Seraph minutes, which are much longer than ours, then finally got to work. They were amazingly fast at their task, and before too long they had a template for my idea. Meanwhile I sent out a couple of Cherubs who Dayspring had left on hand, to find me the specific items that I needed. They looked at me like I had fallen off my rocker when they heard my requests, but they obeyed nonetheless.
Now, all I have to do is fit the bride with her dress.
“So?” Dayspring saunters in, her curiosity piqu
ed by all the rumors she’s been hearing all afternoon about my odd requests and the total secrecy that I put everyone under. The minute I had my idea, I had banished Dayspring from the room. I told her to go take care of all the other final details, and that I had this under control. She left reluctantly, but now she’s back, a bundle of nerves, with a good dose of elation mixed in.
“Stand right here.” I order.
She stands on a little pedestal and I call for my assistants to fly in with the dress. Upon seeing it, Dayspring gasps.
“It’s—it’s—” We all look at her expectantly. “It’s beautiful! Out of this world!”
“That’s right. You hire an alien; you get out of this world,” I proclaim.
A few of the assistants giggle, and I know that I just made fashion history in this planet. The seamstresses help Dayspring into her dress, and she looks radiant, even better than what I had envisioned.
“When I heard a rumor that you had Cherubs flying all over the Universe trying to find you a specific thread…I thought you were going overboard. And you did! But wow!”
“You know, it really helps to have this new ability, to project whatever I can think of. Can you still do it once you resurrect?”
“With a lot of practice you can,” she assures me as she checks herself in the mirror.
“It came in handy when she was trying to tell us what to do,” one of the Seraph seamstresses affirms. “We’ve never done this kind of thing before. She really has opened a new door to fashion here.”
“Yeah! Thread made from a moth? I would have never thought of that!” another pipes in.
“Silk,” I correct. “The thread is called silk, and it’s made from a caterpillar. I’m so glad that the bugs were willing to donate. I never thought of caterpillars as the giving, or the understanding type.” I had asked the Cherubs to go to Earth to get me some silk thread, but they refused to infiltrate the mortal realm for such a trivial thing. So I asked if they had silk and they knew nothing of the sort. So I sent them to find an expert on caterpillars from either of their planets. They were amazed to find that, indeed, a type of caterpillar existed on the Seraph planet that spun a silky cocoon. The entomologist directed them to some of these caterpillars, and the Cherubs asked them personally to give of their silk for Dayspring’s wedding dress. Miraculously, the caterpillars agreed and personally spun a pile of thread for her dress. Katie would willingly die again for a chance to talk to these caterpillars!
Once I had the silk thread, I was able to start my end of the project. Immortal matter had substance to me, so I was able to handle everything they brought to me. I could also move my hands as fast as I could think of them to move, so once I had all the items I needed, I worked swiftly.
The dress is completely covered in snowy, white feathers, freshly plucked from a rare bird that is native to the Cherub planet. The bird is actually something like a swan mixed with a dinosaur; it’s big, and kind of mean, but since their world is now harmonious and millennial-like, the bird let himself be preened for a small price—a squeaky-chew toy. The Cherubs found this request rather unusual, but they agreed to do it, because they were not willing to give up their own feathers for the project.
“These are Cygnus feathers?” Dayspring asks admiringly as she feels the soft, downy feathers that cover her dress.
“Yes. The tips are dipped in spiritual gold paint from Earth’s Heaven.” I smile. It really looks as good as it sounds. The spiritual ink adds the perfect finishing touch, just like the silk thread. The soft, almost transparent color of the golden spiritual ink was enough to add a light shimmer to the tip of the feathers, but translucent enough to be delicate. I attached each feather myself with the thin silk thread. The embroidery I did was embellished to look like a super-fine, flowering vine, and to a Seraph—tiny, tiny. I guess, to them, I was The Tailor of Gloucester—or rather—the mice, which stitched and sowed a fine dress. My needlework looked minute to the Seraphs, and terribly intricate.
The long train is also completely covered with the feathers. From the bust up, the feathers are fanned upward. From the bust down, I placed them so they fanned down—there was no skirt, of course— the front of the bodice was long enough to reach her hind legs, the feathers, giving it a wispy sort of hem. The backside has a heart-shaped opening at the shoulder blades, making room for her wings. The train is not only long, but also wide—so wide that we’ll have to enlist extra Seraph bride’s maids to hold it up while the couple hovers in mid-air.
“Now make sure that the train is not perfectly straight the whole time, it has to ripple just a bit so that it has more flow, like, like…” I reach for the right description, but it eludes me.
“…Like nothing we’ve ever seen.” Dayspring finishes.
“So, you like it?”
A tear slides down her cheek and that tells me all I need to know.
On cue, twenty Cherubs start sounding their trumpets, and from the horizon, a figure cloaked in brightness floats forward. All around me, I hear gasps and soft pleased murmurs. The light that extends from the figure exceeds that of the sun, and its rays graze us, who are sitting on the hillside, like a soft caress. The moment that one of those rays reaches me, I feel all the love He has for me and I feel completely overwhelmed. I would like to run to Him, get closer, feel more…but I can’t. He stands under a single arch made out of the fruiting zayit branch that Dayspring was telling me about. Two floating Cherub children form the arch. The trumpets start playing a different wedding tune—a march of sorts—that is spellbinding. Kerubiel, the groom, floats forward. He calmly saunters, with a huge smile on his face, under the tunnel of the green zayit, followed by Drymus and another Seraph who bears an uncanny resemblance to Dayspring. “Daystar,” the name comes to me, it floats to me like a radio wavelength, and the thought that I had a whole life before my actual mortal life hits me anew. I have been told this before, but it never seemed real until now that actual memories are coming to me all on their own. It feels a lot like when I was alive and would remember a part of my forgotten early childhood, fleeting, yet packed with information.
When Kerubiel and his escorts reach the floating arch, they exchange friendly glances with Him, then take their places to one side of the floating altar. The music changes again, and now it’s my turn to perform my duties as Dayspring’s Issa’ahot. I walk in first and start throwing feathers in the air; audible gasps tell me that Dayspring is making her entrance behind me.
I hear a buzz of amazed comments about how beautiful Dayspring looks and how extraordinary her dress is. From the corner of my eye I see that some Seraphs and Cherubs are pointing at me: the human dressmaker and Issa’ahot.
“Is there anything conventional about this wedding?” some murmur astounded.
My instructions are to move aside once I reach the altar, to make way for Dayspring. This I do, but not before sneaking a glance in His direction, I want to see Him, finally, see Him. He directs a brief, but purposeful smile my way, and in an instant I’m filled to the brim with His love for me. In the briefest of milliseconds that He takes to acknowledge me, He conveys more information than I can process. He—the one they call the First One, and we on Earth call Jesus Christ—takes the time to tell me of his love, appreciation, thankfulness for my efforts, and willingness to fulfill my mission in life. Yet I also feel rebuked for what I did. His reproof is stern and serious, but has no anger in it. It’s more like a warning and a plea to fix my own mess. And before I know it, His attention shifts to Dayspring, but I remain filled with an unspeakable peace.
Once Dayspring reaches the altar, her brother Daystar comes to her side and kisses her on the cheek. He gives her away and the ceremony begins.
His actual voice is both like thunder and a babbling brook. His words are precise and full of meaning, but I find that I’m not listening. My mind is still trying to process all of the previous communication He conveyed to me. All I know right now is peace—complete inner peace.
This peace, how
ever, gets mingled with a foreign feeling—a scream rather—of desperation. It’s Alex. His mind is screaming, overloaded with grief and pain, reaching an intolerable point, a breaking point.
“Alex?”
“Tess?” The surprise and alarm in his voice sounds crisp and clear in my head.
“Yes! It’s me! I’m sorry, I tried to help but—”
“Get out of my head! I never want to hear from you again, you hear me?”
“Alex, don’t say that, please. I’m doing all I can to help you, I promise!” Even as I say those words guilt sweeps through me at the fact that I’m not telling him the truth, I’m not doing all I can, I’m designing clothes, attending a wedding, enjoying myself, all while he’s losing his mind. He sees all this in my head, of course. I can’t hide anything from him while we are linked. A sneer forms in his lips, and a swell of bitterness sweeps over him, adding to his torment.
“Alex please, you don’t understand, please let me—” It’s no use, he shuts me out. All I can see now is bitterness poisoning him, quite literally, from head to toe. “Don’t bother with me, Tess. I’ll be fine. You just go and enjoy your after-life, don’t let me ruin it for you.” And just like that, he severs our link, and I’m left feeling a blank static-like emptiness that feels like a bucket of ice water has just been poured on me.
In looking up, I realize that not only was the service over, but He’s gone too, and with Him, that peaceful feeling. All I have left now is the memory of the warmth, tainted with Alex’s unforgiving last words.
The guests are mingling amicably and reminiscing about the bride and groom’s long past. I feel completely out of place here. I’m the only human and the only ghost. The previous excitement over the dress and all my accomplishments seem ridiculous to me now and all I want to do is get out of here.