by Tricia Barr
I cocked my head. “I really have no idea. I imagine that there’s some type of afterlife beyond this world. And I would hope that it’s pleasant, at least for people like my parents. Is there a Heaven? A Hell?”
“Both,” he said. “But to get to either place, all souls must first pass through the Gates. If a soul doesn’t have unfinished business in the physical world, their deliverance to the Gates is automatic. That’s where I come in. It was my job to usher every soul to its destination. Have you ever noticed that all souls have shades to them?”
I thought about it for a moment, trying to focus beyond imagining the mystical world he was describing to me. After a moment of delving through my memory bank, I realized that that souls I ripped out of bad guys were definitely tinted darker compared to the brighter souls of ghosts that walked around. Like that little boy from Circus Circus. His soul was reasonably bright. “Okay?” I said, desperate for him to get back to the explanation.
“That coloring is how I know where to send the soul,” he said. “A white soul goes to Heaven, a dark soul goes to Hell, and the various shades of gray souls get reborn until they get it right.”
A question burned inside my chest, and the pain was too intense to hold it in. “Where did my parents go?”
His face softened, and his lips curled into a gentle smile. “Their souls were white, Lorelei. They are meant for Heaven.”
His words brought an explosion of joy to my heart, and I thought I might literally burst with it. I was so happy to know that they had gone to a better place. But the cranks in my mind were getting stuck, and I realized there was something amiss in what he was saying. The smile that had blossomed on my face wilted.
“Why are you saying it like that?” I asked. “You said they are meant for Heaven, not that they went to Heaven. And you keep talking about this stuff in a past tense.”
He sighed again, hung his head and looked up at me, looking like a sad puppy. “You have always been such a clever girl.” He looked down at his lap. “I was appointed as the Gatekeeper a thousand years ago. My soul was darkened by guilt from the hundreds of lives I’d taken as a soldier, and I was marked for Hell. But the Gatekeeper at the time pulled me out and offered me the chance to take his place. If I were to serve a term of a thousand years ushering souls through the Gates to their rightful afterlife, my soul would be cleansed and at the end of it I could cross through myself and go to Heaven. I was terrified of the idea of Hell, not knowing what it really was, so I accepted. For a very long time, I helped countless souls pass through, constantly, never resting. I didn’t realize that my term had been completed when the time came, that it was time to select someone to take my place.”
He furrowed his brow, his eyes turning blue as they moistened with pain. “And when I saw your soul coming to the Gate, blackened, all I could think of was saving you. I pulled you out of the flow and broke a cardinal rule: No soul gets ushered to where it doesn’t belong. But I couldn’t let you go to Hell, I just couldn’t. I hoped that if I pushed you back into the rebirth cycle, you might get it right with this next life. I didn’t realize that by pulling you out of the flow, I was transferring my position as Gatekeeper to you. After I pushed you through to be reborn, the Gates were sealed. I couldn’t push anyone else through, to any of the three plains. The Gates have been sealed the past seventeen years, and no one who has died since has been able to move on.”
My mouth had gone dry as he spoke, leaving a foul taste on my tongue. This whole thing was too big to process, and I felt numb in the wake of wrestling to accept it. I remembered how the little ghost boy had come back after going into the light. I remembered thinking then that maybe the system that let them move on was broken. Well, it was, and I was the reason why. What did this mean? How could I fix it?
But neither of those were the question that made it past my shock-dried lips. “Why me?”
His still glistening eyes met mine, and he held my gaze so longingly, so painfully.
“You are the reason for everything I have ever done,” he declared meaningfully, and my breath hitched. “You have lived so many lives, so I would never expect you to retain even a second of our time together, but we were married once. Back in the times of the Knights Templar, my last life before I became the Gatekeeper. You were my match in every single way. We did everything together. We even battled side-by-side.”
The battle scenes from my recurring dream flashed in my mind, with Killian and I dressed in armor, swinging swords against a horde of combatants. The crash of metal against metal echoed in my ears. And then came the inevitable end to that dream, from which I turned my head and shut my eyes.
“I have watched you ever since I died,” Killian continued. “I watched over you from the spirit world until you finished that life, and then said goodbye to you as I guided you through the gate to reborn. Over and over again, I watched you grow up, fall in love, get heartbroken, laugh, cry, grow old and die. Time and time again, life after life, you would make the same mistakes. Sacrifice yourself and your innocence to protect those you loved. Justify ill means to a good end. Every time you came to the Gates, your soul was darker and darker.
“That last time, your soul was too dark. It had been too poisoned by guilt and pain to re-enter the human world. You were meant for Hell, and I couldn’t bare it.”
“So…I really am evil then?” I asked, a sick feeling turning my stomach and draining the blood from my face.
He eagerly put his hand over the top of mine. “No, you’re not evil. That’s not what Hell is. The living have it all wrong. Hell isn’t an eternal prison cell for evil souls, it’s more of a rehabilitation center for lost souls. Guilt is what darkens the soul. Everyone manifests guilt in different ways, and the more they hurt others, the heavier their guilt becomes. At a certain point, the guilt becomes too much, and humans shut off their emotions, justifying every ill action. That is the point where their soul is blackened beyond reincarnation. They go to Hell to suffer through their guilt and to gain understanding, to learn to forgive themselves so that they are ready to try life again. Then they are allowed to be reborn.”
My breath was hiccupping in my throat from the revelation of this news. Hell wasn’t eternal damnation or fire and brimstone? This went against everything the world believed in, everything it had taught me. It was revolutionarily relieving. To know that no one remained damned forever. The idea that redemption could be achieved by all if they strived for it, if they worked towards it. Maybe there was hope for me after all.
“If you knew that Hell wasn’t an eternal prison for me, then why did you pull me out?” I asked, trying to understand him. I mean, obviously, I was very glad that I wasn’t in Hell right now, even if it wasn’t quite what I had imagined.
“There’s no telling how long it will take for a soul to be rehabilitated,” Killian answered. “It could take hundreds of years. I knew that if I sent you through that Gate to your destination, I might never see you again. It’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever done.”
He looked so remorseful. His shoulders were sagging with the weight of his guilt. Guilt! He said that guilt was what darkened souls. If he had finished his term of service, as he put it, then he should be able to move on, to go to Heaven, right? Unless I misunderstood something he said. What if the guilt he felt over this darkened him enough to take that chance away?
I wasn’t going to let that happen. He had sacrificed so much for me. I knew that I now. I now saw the hugely cosmic connection we had, and the indestructible love he had for me. To have watched over my soul for a thousand years. Such loyalty was unfathomable, and irresistible.
“If it counts, I’m not sorry that you did it,” I said. “I don’t know what Hell is really like, but you have no idea how grateful I am to you that I’m not there right now, instead of here with you. Thank you for saving me from literally a fate worse than death. I’m eternally grateful. Don’t let your guilt over it consume you.”
Our eyes locked, our souls getti
ng lost in each other. Hands touched. Faces pulled closer. Eyelids fluttered closed in anticipation. Nostrils inhaled scents of one another, then held their breath. And then…
Lips met. Soft and hopeful at first, fearful that the moment would crumble like aged flower petals. Then our lips parted, taking in more of each other, and a ravenous fever infected both of us.
My body flooded with liquid heat, my nervous system surging with pure bliss. This was where I was meant to be! His lips were meant for mine, perfectly fitted like two tandem pieces in a small yet complete puzzle. His tongue caressed my lower lip, eliciting a silent moan from my sensation-overdosing mouth. I reached out my tongue, and it danced with his, as if it knew exactly what to do. As if it had kissed him a thousand times.
A cozy haze consumed my mind, and for a moment I thought I might just be dreaming again. I prayed that I wouldn’t wake up. I didn’t want this to end. His fingers combed up through the back of my neck, playfully gripping my thick dark hair, and I realized that this was very real, that I wasn’t dreaming.
We truly were made for each other. I had dreamed of him from my first cognitive moment of life. And this was why. God, I was stupid to ever think he was trying to hurt me. I was a damned fool to ever question his motives toward me, to not realize that he was the best, most amazing person that has ever lived.
And now after a thousand years of being apart, we had a second chance. We could be together. There was nothing I wanted more.
Killian pulled his lips abruptly away from mine, leaving my lips feeling reluctantly chafed and cold. I opened my eyes, wondering why he broke the most amazing—well, only—kiss of my life.
“You have no idea how long I have wanted to do that,” he said hoarsely, his fingers tightening their grip on my hair behind my head. “I have missed you so painfully, it’s been more strenuous to endure than any torture of Hell.”
“Then why did you stop?” I asked, ducking in to continue the kiss.
Killian dodged his head and scooted backwards, and the rejection was a like a slap in the face.
“There is still more that I haven’t told you, and you need to understand everything before we…engage in any other activities,” he said, an endearing blush surfacing on his cheeks.
I nodded and shrugged, struggling to pull the reins on my loosened inhibitions. “Okay, what else do I need to know?”
“Have you already forgotten about the swarm of black specters we just escaped from?” he asked.
Actually, I had. I had been so enrapt in Killian’s story, in him, that everything else had been happily pushed out of my mind. Now that he had brought it up, renewed anxiety coiled in my belly, bringing with it a typhoon of questions.
“What were they?” I asked. “Are they demons? What do they want with me?”
He took a deep breath, and then blew it out. “Oh, here we go. I told you that the Gate to the afterlife has been closed since your birth. So since then, no spirits have been able to pass through. No enlightened souls have gone on to Heaven, no gray souls have been reborn, and no darkened souls have gone to Hell. As you might have guessed, almost every person you have killed was marked for Hell, so seeing as they haven’t been able to pass through, they’ve been gathering and congregating at the gates.”
A foreboding shadow fell over my brain, and I suspected I knew where he was going with this. I had killed a lot of people, a lot of evil people. I could only imagine what their untethered souls would do if their judgment was forestalled and they learned how to join forces.
Killian continued. “I thought everything would be fine. I thought that I could hold them there for the span of your lifetime, let you live out your life before I had to bring you over to open the Gates. I couldn’t just snuff out your life before you’d even lived. If I had taken you as an infant or a child, you would never have been able to manage the power and responsibility of the Gate. I justified every excuse to allow you to stay in the world. But then, your most recent victim, he began causing problems.”
My most recent victim?... “Luca?” I asked.
Killian nodded. “He was filled with a hateful vengeance for you, and that fire drove him to see things that others didn’t. He saw that the Gate wasn’t working, that there was no system in place to keep him at the Gate, and he figured out a way to cross back into the mortal world. Once he learned the trick, he tempted all your other victims to go back with him and take their revenge.”
The prospect of such a thing was horrifying. I knew Luca. He was the last person you wanted to screw over, because he would pay you back tenfold. He was devious when it came to getting what he wanted. And you could be damned sure that, if he found a way to get revenge on his killer, he would do it, and do it with style.
“Wait, I don’t understand,” I said. “If those things back in the woods, the things that have been haunting me all this time, were just ghosts, why couldn’t I see them? I’ve always been able to see ghosts. I couldn’t not see ghosts even if I wanted to. But with those things, I was completely unaware of them until…until they wanted me to be aware of them.”
“All the ghosts you see walking around on this plane are gray,” Killian explained. “And they are only still here because there is something keeping them here, some unfinished business, as humans call it, that keeps them from wanting to move on. Gray souls are given that choice. Black souls are not. They are immediately drawn to the gates so that Hell can process them, because they are simply too dangerous and unstable to be allowed to roam the mortal world. Luca learned the tricks that come with his brand of darkness. He learned how to cloak himself from your senses, how to manipulate matter and create illusions. And he has taught those skills to all of his new dead friends.”
Propelled by my jumpy inner thoughts, I stood up off the bed and began to pace. I should have known. I should have figured out that Luca was the one hazing me. But I had never seen his soul after he died. It disappeared like so many others, so I thought there was no coming back from wherever he went. I thought I was done with him.
But now he had figured out a way to escape his fate and get back at me. How was I going to stop him?
“I tried to stall this as long as I could,” Killian said, looking down at the bed. “When Luca came and started stirring things up, I thought that if I could just infiltrate your life, become a part of it, then I could protect you from him, from all of them. But…my powers aren’t as potent as they were before I intervened in your fate.”
I turned to him. “Your powers! That’s right, you still have your powers. If I’m the new…Gatekeeper or whatever, how is that you still have your powers? And why can’t you use them to open the Gate?”
He shook his head and waved his hand. “Retired Gatekeepers are expected to go to Heaven after leaving the Gate. I had no idea that we still retained our powers after naming a successor, because the Gatekeeper who chose me moved on. That was why I didn’t even realize right away that anything had changed after I inadvertently transferred my station to you. I could still do all the same things. I just couldn’t open the Gate.”
He thought for a moment.
“I think that a Gatekeeper in the past might have chosen not to go to Heaven,” he said. “Just recently, I stumbled on another with our power. Do you remember hearing about the attack on London last year?”
A vague memory came to mind, of articles in my Facebook feed about some psycho who marched through London and tried to take over England. I remembered seeing the viral video linked to that event. Hundreds of convicts at Pentonville Prison all died instantly. So many people thought it was a hoax that I didn’t pay it too much attention.
“You think that man was an ex-Gatekeeper?” I asked. “But I thought that being a Gatekeeper meant instant access into Heaven.”
“Yes, but I think that he chose to be reborn instead,” Killian said thoughtfully, rubbing his chin.
“Why would anyone choose that over Heaven?” I asked, finding the idea ridiculous. “Even more, how would a Gate
keeper get so twisted as to kill so many people and try to take over a nation?”
“From the Gate, we get to see the entire world of the living,” Killian responded. “We get to watch the way the world changes, how evils mold its future. I have to admit that, on more than one occasion, I thought about defecting back to the mortal world to try and change it. I could see how one of us in the past might have had the same idea and acted on it.”
I nodded, understanding the desire to rid the world of evil. I had looked all my life for a way to rid the evil within myself.
“Wait,” I said, shaking my head. Something about that theory didn’t make sense. “It isn’t possible for that guy to have been an ex-Gatekeeper. You were the Gatekeeper for the last thousand years. This guy just attacked last year. He couldn’t have been a Gatekeeper, unless he was somehow thousands of years old.” I puffed a laugh at the idea.
“In fact, he was,” Killian said.
I frowned and raised an eyebrow at him, waiting for the punch line. Surely, he was joking. But his face was serious. “How is that possible?”
“After you take over, you will learn that there are things in this world beyond our understanding,” Killian said. “Ancient magic that can’t be explained. That man, Joran, was born several thousand years ago in a village of powerful witches. They made him immortal, and then buried him. He was only recently unearthed, and then killed by the same ancient magic that made him immortal in the first place.”
I should have been awed by this little tidbit of information, but something else he said had me stuck.
“After I take over,” I repeated. “I have to take your place as Gatekeeper.”
It wasn’t a question, but he gave a sad nod anyway.
“How long do I have?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
He frowned, his chest rising and falling with the weight of the words he needed to say. “I thought that the two of us could spend the rest of your mortal life together, finish it until its natural conclusion, and then go back to the Gate together. But too many people are dying every day. Too many have already died, and the confusion is already dimming the light on some of the brighter souls. Waiting too much longer will throw the entire world out of balance. Not just for the dead, but for the living as well.”