by S. B. Niccum
The sound is that of a high-pitched, cathedral-like choir of children, singing in pure and soft tones, like crystals tinkling in the wind. It’s hypnotic, and all of us, mortals and spirits alike, stare spellbound at the source of these tiny voices. The sound comes from thousands of small children, who are floating in mid-air, gleefully singing as if this were a well rehearsed recital.
Some of them are very small—babies even, who are being held by the older kids. They are not spirits; they’re all immortal and perfect.
“The Eternals’ court,” Katie mutters in a soft whisper, not wanting to dispel the magic of the moment.
“What?” Irene asks, confused.
A vague pre-mortal memory of visiting a place where all the Earthly children that died in infancy went, comes to mind. All the children there were being taken care of by angels, and it was literally where the Eternals dwelt. I manage to explain this memory to my family, and Katie pipes in with some of the details that I’ve forgotten. Celeste says that she too recalls visiting such a place before she was born, but her explanations are cut short by the strangled croak of a mortal woman from the surface.
“Julia!” the woman exclaims, choked up with joy and fear. “Julia! Julia!” She starts jumping up as if wanting to take flight.
From the group of hovering children, a single girl of about five years turns her head and spots the woman. The child claps her hands and flies down toward her mother. Seeing this, other parents start to sift through the ranks of returned children who miraculously hover above them. In no time, a grand reunion starts to take place, not just from the mortal realm, but also from the spiritual realm. Spirits, who had long ago lost their children, fly straight to the little flock, as if guided by a magnet. In time, all the children are claimed and the first wave of true rejoicing is felt.
“So this is it!” Dorian exclaims. “The end!” The words seem oddly ironic. The most expected date since the world began, the end, and it is here, and we are watching it.
“So now what?” Henry asks, and we all look back at him with answerless, vacant stares.
Chapter 22
A thousand years of peace goes by quickly for the dead. That is…if you don’t dwell on the nuisances of not having a body.
For Alex and me, these years have been laden with vexation. Every time I look into those piercing aqua colored eyes of his, my head goes into a spin cycle. The memory of that tingling sensation that I would always get around him, coupled with the infusion of adrenaline washing through me, just like it used to when I was alive, still grips me every time. But it’s become, more and more, a fleeting memory. And just like a butterfly, try as I might to catch it, it’s always just out of my reach.
Not until now do I realize how much my emotions and my physical reactions worked in unison to create that feeling of a spark that kindles dry, parched wood, that burns and crackles with delight. Or the rush of emotions in your torso that seem to wake up every single nerve ending in your body, making it dance with joy. The memories of these feelings have teased me now for a lot longer than the actual mortal experiences, yet they have tormented me with their intermittent presence, and have exasperated me to no end. I still feel all the emotions, but my mind knows that something is missing and it pines after its loss. I’ve never missed my body more.
Alex has felt it too. I haven’t had to link with him to know. I can see that same frustration registered in his eyes every time we’re around each other—like someone has ripped a particularly sweet and juicy fruit out of his hands just as he was about to take a bite.
We have had plenty of time to talk and set things straight. He told me about his turning point. “It was the Seer Stones,” he explained.
“The what?” I asked, because I had never heard of those.
“The Seer Stones that are on display at the Museum of Heavenly Artifacts.” he explains. “These stones were used by John the Revelator, Moses, Isaiah, and others to see the future. Henry, Eugenia and I were messing around, and we picked them up and took turns trying them on. Eugenia and Henry seemed to like what they saw, but I…it was different for me. It was awful! If I ever felt haunted before, this topped it all.”
“What did you see?”
“Me. I saw myself, and my fate, if I didn’t change. I was standing before the Eternals being judged, and feeling like I would rather be obliterated into dust than face them as I was. I didn’t want Them to know me as I was, but in the vision, it was too late to change. They were pronouncing my fate and punishment. They were going to make me pay for my own sins all by myself. Just as they pronounced my verdict, I started to feel what that suffering entailed. It was excruciating, intolerable, and I knew that I couldn’t endure it. I removed those seer stones like they were burning coals. I only had them on for a few seconds, and still, I couldn’t endure the thought of that punishment. So right then, I resolved to do something about it.
“I left Henry and Eugenia, and went straight to find someone who could help me. I flew straight into some huge Cherub named Drymus. He asked me if I was now ready to set things straight. I thought he was a bit presumptuous, but then he told me that you asked him to help me.”
“I did. You weren’t listening to me—” I tried to explain, hoping that he wouldn’t be upset.
“Don’t apologize. I was an idiot.”
“Did he have you Open the fast way?”
He nodded. “It was like jumping from the oven to the frying pan! I thought I made a mistake. But he showed me what you went through for me…he showed me your Opening. That gave me strength to continue.”
As it turns out, those Seer Stones were also responsible for triggering a change in Eugenia and Henry. They later confided in us what they saw in the stones, and how that changed them—mostly Eugenia—who was at that time still confused about who she was.
“I saw myself as I am now,” she told us. “I saw a happy, confident, selfless person, who had friends, lots and lots of friends. I also looked beautiful again, which helped,” she added contentedly. “Henry was at my side, and we were in love. But it wasn’t what I saw that changed my mind. It was what I felt and how I felt. I realized then that that’s the feeling I’ve been searching for my whole entire existence. And I realized that it was within my grasp, if only I worked hard enough to get it.
“When I took those stones off my head, I didn’t know how I was going to achieve that, but I knew I would. I started working on it as soon as I found my Spirit Guide. She told me to start small, by doing simple selfless acts here and there as I attended class. She told me to look for ways to serve others even in small ways—a smile, a listening ear, whatever.
“Before too long, I started to see a change in me. I was happier, freer, more confident…it was really a revolutionary idea for me!” And it was, we all agreed with her. Selflessness suited her well, and the interesting thing is that she is now one of the most selfless spirits I know.
Henry, however, admitted that the things he saw in his vision had not yet come true, but he suspected that they would come to pass soon enough. That was all he would ever say, and though we bug him about it to this day, yet he still won’t budge. He says that he’s afraid of jinxing the vision somehow if he tells.
The rest of us, who haven’t had a chance to try the Seer Stones on, have had to settle for taking things as they come. Celeste, for instance, has had to deal with her whole melodrama without the benefit of knowing how it would all work out. I’ve told her that a movie would some day be made about her life. She said that the movie about my life would be better. I disagreed, so we put it to a vote among all our friends and family. It came back a tie.
The hardest thing she had to do was to tell her son, Leo, who his father really was. She had to admit with shame that she lied to her son, her second husband Ricardo, and stepson Eros.
“It was all for money,” Celeste admitted to me while we strolled down an Earthly millennial sidewalk in Paris. We watched with a tinge of envy as mortal millennial children licked i
ce cream and splashed in a fountain.
“For what?” she questioned. “Money no longer exists. It all seems so…so…”
“Unimportant.”
“Yes, precisely.” She gestured with her hands. “I lied because I was scared. Max had died and I had just found out I was pregnant. I didn’t know how I was going to take care of all these kids by myself. Then Ricardo shows up, cavalier and strapping as always, offering an out for me. He dangled my inheritance in front of me, the one that was revoked from me when I married Max.”
“How did Max die, Celeste? Did he really fall in the well? Was it really an accident?”
“No,” she said flatly. “Ricardo showed up and had a scuffle with Max. Max tripped, hit his head, and died. Ricardo panicked, so he threw him down the well, hoping to cover his tracks. Then he had the gall to come to me and offering his hand in marriage!”
“Wow…and you still think my life story will get the movie deal?”
Celeste laughed as she used to, before we were mortals. Memories of that pre-mortal time keep coming to my remembrance, little by little, and lately they have been coming back to me a lot more. I think it’s in preparation for the judgment—The Judgment Day!
“How did Leo take the whole thing?” I asked her.
“He was stunned at first but, bless him, he’s been through so much that he—of all people—knows the importance of forgiveness. He decided to look on the bright side—Max. He was thrilled to find out that Max was his father after all, and the two of them have been spending much time together.”
“So what happened to Ricardo and Eros?
“Ricardo just Opened not too long ago. Surprisingly enough, Max was the Spirit Guide who helped him through it.”
“That man’s a saint!”
“That he is,” Celeste said dreamily. “Eros has been in Spirit Prison until recently. Richardo himself got him out and is helping him through the transition. He might be working on Opening, I’m not sure.”
“I think he truly loved Agatha in life,” I say. Eros, though much older, had married Agatha in mortal life, and I think that in her own way, she loved him too.
Miraculously, Samantha and Pete survived the last mortal war, and they were old when the end came. All those who were still alive when the First One came in his glory to take control over the Earth, were changed into Aeonian-like mortals. Sam and Pete were changed in the blink of an eye. One minute they were aged, and the next they were young again—a great reward for someone like them who saw nothing but war their whole life. For a change, they got to experience life in a paradisiacal world, where peace abounded and children grew up happy, fed, and free from sorrow. They had lots of children, and when they finally passed, they Opened straightaway.
When the dragon was released for the final time, those who lived during the Millennium were tested. For a short while, they were faced with the lies and the deceit that the dragon and its followers assailed them with. They were challenged, but not defeated, thanks to us—the host of Heaven—who came to their aid, and once more, defeated him. Some of the mortals who grew up in millennial earth, stumbled, but none were lost. Once and for all, we Earthlings proved ourselves capable of uniting and crushing the enemy of our souls.
Finally, Earth is ours. Forever!
Chapter 23
Nothing, absolutely nothing could have prepared me for this. I’ve heard it from Dayspring and Drymus a thousand times in the last thousand years, but it fails to compare to how it actually feels.
Feeling like an immortal being feels is an entirely new sensation. I know I’ve been without a body for a long time, and memories of physical feeling have dulled over time, but there are others who haven’t been dead for as long as I have that agree with me—having an immortal body is awesome!
Smells, sounds, colors, textures, everything is enhanced and everything is heightened. Earth has been restored to its fully intended beauty and glory. Everything has an aura, not just people and animals, but everything! Soft waves of color surround every living thing—even rocks are alive now—or maybe they’ve always been, and we just didn’t know it. Good chills run through me as I set my bare foot back on firm ground and link with the earth beneath. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, my essence belongs here. We are one now. Everything is alive and interconnected; we understand the firm need to be part of each other. The earth wants us as much as we want it; we are as we were meant to be.
“Wow!” Alex marvels next to me. He’s been getting better at linking with others, and is feeling the same thing I’m feeling—Earth calling us, welcoming us back.
“I know…”
“It wants us here!” he marvels.
“I never imagined that the earth would feel whole only with us inhabiting it.”
“It wants us to plant it, to tend it, and grow it!”
“Make it bloom!” Katie, who is right behind us, bends down and digs her fingers into the dirt.
“Yes, it does,” Alex echoes, awestruck.
Suddenly, Katie darts off and we see Jase zoom by us, hot on her tail. They are laughing about something. I smile. Our voices sound different too. They have a crisper, more accurate, and purer tenor. I bet I can sing now, and sing well.
“Look!” I exclaim, when I see a patch of flowers growing at the edge of a stream. I kneel on the luscious emerald grass, and bend over the blooms to catch a whiff of their scent. A soft, fresh, herby smell fills my nostrils and goes straight into my lungs. It’s as if I’ve never smelled before! The grass is dewy, and smells of clean earth. Then I catch a whiff of another smell in the air, and follow that scent until I come to a grove of trees.
Alex follows close behind me. “Wait up!” he calls, pausing, like me, to smell everything.
Under the trees, it smells the best—woodsy—a mixture of bark, leaves, and rain. Inhaling deeply, I fill my lungs and exhale. “Hear that?”
Alex pauses, and listens. “What was that?”
“It happens when I exhale. Look!” I take in another deep breath, and then let it out. A rustle—soft, barely perceptible, but still there—as leaves and branches respond. “They’re breathing!” I exclaim with awe.
Taking in another deep breath and letting it out again, Alex tries the experiment once more, and sure enough, as soon as his breath leaves his lips, the treetops take it in as if they were glad to have us back among them.
Placing the palm of my hand against the asperous, rough bark, I try to see what else I can feel from them. A full measure of contentment, that’s what they radiate. It seems that immortal Earth is not only perfect, as it was meant to be, but also happy, joyous, as it was meant to feel.
Alex looks at me with an impish look, and in a flash is standing next to me, patting a lose strand of hair back behind my ear. He glides his hand all the way down the length of it, taking in the feel of each strand of my hair. He smells it. “It smells like you,” he comments, then traces my features with the tips of his fingers. They feel like silk against my face. I close my eyes, and relish the sense of touch again—his touch. This sense is heightened too. My old memories of what it felt like to be caressed by him as a mortal seem feeble in comparison.
“And what do I smell like?” I ask amused.
“You. Just…you.” He smiles, and leans in for our first kiss as immortal beings. I feel my new heart beginning to quicken at the prospect. I marvel at that simple automatic response, and I’m reminded of how a body used to work under these circumstances. My pulse accelerates, my palms get sweaty, my breath shallow, my cheeks heat up all the way up to my ears. I love it! I’ve missed it so much! My emotions and my body work in unison to create that feeling of having butterflies in my stomach—that quick flutter that starts in the middle and electrifies the whole body from head to toe. I close my eyes and take in the feel of his lips pressed against mine, moving slowly and deliberately. His fingers, sliding along my jaw line, then tangling themselves in my hair.
Right when I think I might explode from the inside out, I hear
the familiar, booming sound of Russell’s voice. “Who’s hungry?” he asks, with a laugh in his voice.
“I’m going to kill him,” Alex growls through gritted teeth, but doesn’t let go of me.
“You can’t. He’s immortal,” I remind him, not moving away from him either.
“Then I’ll beat him up,” he mumbles through another kiss.
“He might be stronger than you,” I tease.
“Ha!” He opens his eyes and looks insulted. “I’ve always been faster, even if he’s stronger. I bet I can still pin him before he can inflict any pain.”
“Oh yeah? Wanna have a go at it?” Russell taunts, calling him out with one hand.
In a flash, Alex is at his side, and before Russell can even see what he is up to, Alex has him safely pinned to the ground.
“It’s going to be a long eternity,” Nancy sighs.
“I can see that,” I say, looking at the two of them rolling around on the fresh turf, getting green smudges all over their white clothes.
“I wonder if there are Laundromats established yet?” Nancy says, and we both laugh.
Like bees flying back to the hive, the rest of the family finds us. Even Dorian shows up with Luz, and with her, my two aunts and my grandparents, Celeste and Max. My parents are nowhere to be found, but no one really worries, or asks too many questions. Heaven knows they never had much time to themselves in life.
Little by little, the group populates as if drawn by a magnet. Love, I suppose, is the draw. All present are loved ones, and what a huge group we are! My heart swells with pride at knowing that I have them all forever. Finally! All the fears I had before crossing the Veil—fears of losing them, of forgetting them, of living life alone—those fears have all been conquered. What I didn’t realize then, was that our love for each other would form a tether that the Veil could never sever. That love made it possible for us to find each other, and to be connected in spite of distance, or forgetfulness. We were meant to be together—always!