Veiled (12 page)

“
The continent known as
Asia will hold all the spirits assigned to the First Seal, Africa
the Second Seal, Europe the Third Seal, Australia the Fourth, South
America the Fifth, North America the Sixth and Antarctica the
Seventh Seal.” Don’t worry—signs have been posted at every
continent.”
Several spirits laughed,
others looked dumbfounded, like they had just gotten too much
information.

“
You are not constrained to
remain in your own continent, but all your training courses will be
held there, so as to keep the travel time between classes to a
minimum. Also, each continent will reflect the peak of its own
future development on Earth.”
A murmur
rose from the crowds.
“Remember that, just
like you, all things exist first spiritually, then physically. We
know that you have many questions, and they will be answered during
the course of your training. Now, the First One will open the First
Seal and write the proceedings of this First Day.”

The First One stepped
forward, took the keys that he was handed, and opened the First
Seal. Then with a long white quill that looked like it came right
out of a Cherub’s wing, he wrote in the Book of Earth
Life
.

To say that the spirit
world was crowded would be a complete understatement. Clearly this
was to be a temporary setback, only to last until Earth was
finished and life began. But for now it was packed, not just with
human forms, but with animal creatures that would one day inhabit
Earth. Some of the creatures looked particularly menacing, towering
over us and looking like they were already hungry.

“
Please don’t let me live
with these creatures,” I said under my breath as I passed a
particularly large group of them.

“
Oh, I don’t think they
will inhabit Earth at the same time as humans.” I turned to find
Katie’s smiling face looking back at me. “Did you get sent to this
line?” she asked innocently.

Behind her I could see my
clan distractedly looking all around them, and pointing in all
directions, trying to figure out which way to go.

“
No,” I said
tartly.

“
Oh…well we didn’t either,
we just…” She looked all around her. “…ended up here.”

“
That’s great,” I said
without enthusiasm and tried to find a way out of her
presence.

Celeste spotted me and
rushed to my side with outstretched arms and a big smile, her
golden locks bouncing as she did.

“
Tess! Where have you
been? I’ve been looking all over for you. You were there and next
thing I know, you were gone. No one knew where you went or
why.”

“
Oh, I…found a better
spot,” I said while stealing a glance in Alex’s direction. He was
once more talking to Katie, this time they looked serious.
So, she
can
talk without giggling,
I
thought.

Celeste was frowning at me,
then slid her hand through my arm and moved me a ways
away.

“
What’s gotten into you?”
she scolded.

I shrugged. What could I
tell her? That my whole existence right now was a nightmare, and
that I hated it and wished that I could go back to the good old
boring days of hanging out with my clan?

She shook her head in clear
disapproval. “You are changing, Tess. I’m not sure why, but you
are.” Her eyes looked condemningly into mine.

I felt so numb and empty
inside. For a moment, while the Eternals were talking, I could feel
a little bit of hope creeping back into me. But now…nothing. At
least nothing was better than the choking feeling,
though.

“
OK, if you want to be
this way, be this way,” Celeste said in a dismissive tone. “Let’s
talk about something else. For example, what Seal do you think
we’ll belong to?”

“
We may not belong to the
same Seal at all.”

“
Oh, stop it will you? I’m
trying to pretend like I’m talking to my best friend, Tess, not her
evil twin.”

I laughed in spite of
myself. It hurt that she felt that way about me now, but I had to
admit that her assessment was correct.

“
There, I knew she was in
there somewhere. Now, answer me,” she demanded with her usual bossy
attitude.

We were now casually
gliding over our new spirit world, and if you could get past the
chaos of beasts and spirits that were roaming it, you could see a
varied and pleasant world. I started to feel better little by
little, and I knew that part of it was Celeste’s company. She had a
way with spirits. Her serenity and confidence was
contagious.

All the lines to find out
what seal of time we belonged to were extremely long, until we
finally realized that the line in Antarctica was the shortest.
Apparently the barren ice was not as enticing as the others, so
very few ended up there and most of them had been sent there from
other lines as their appointed place of training.

Together with our clan, we
flew straight to Antarctica and got in line. The whole time we were
in line both Alex and I managed to avoid each other completely. It
felt very awkward, but there was a rift between us now and I didn’t
know how to fix it.

“
Sixth Seal, North
America,” the Seraph Sentinel declared as each of us stood before
him.

Once we got to the northern
continent, we checked in with the Sentinel there, and then we did
what every other spirit was doing—explored the place. Little by
little our group became separated, and I found myself wandering the
streets of a city alone. I had no idea where I was or where I was
going, and I didn’t care.

This city was like no
normal city that we would ever inhabit. This city was made for the
purpose of housing lots of spirits with the sole purpose of
training them. Beautifully landscaped mansions lined the streets,
all of them huge and varied in architectural design. Every tree and
bush was in full bloom, like they would be in spring time. There
were benches and sitting areas scattered throughout, and the
sidewalks were wide and divided the space between each mansion, so
that the spirits could commute from one building to the
next.

Each mansion had a plaque
at the entrance that described what sort of training would be going
on inside, and I seemed to be gliding down the Gifts district. Gift
of Tongues, Gift of Working Miracles, Gift of Knowledge. On the
other side of the street was my own gift’s building, Gift of
Discernment. It wasn’t as grandiose as the others. It was a smaller
cottage-like structure with two similar buildings behind it. It was
thickly landscaped with an overgrown, less manicured garden, and a
stream wove right between all three buildings.

“
Beautiful, isn’t it?” Leo
said from a little distance. Irene was not far behind him bending
over some of the flowers.

“
Nope!” she yelled from
her spot. “…not at all.” Irene turned and smiled when she saw me.
“Tess, hi! I thought that maybe, just maybe, we might be able to
smell the flowers, since they are spiritual flowers, but no luck. I
guess we’ll just have to wait,” she said with
disappointment.

“
Have you been inside
yet?” Leo asked.

“
No, not yet.”

“
Good! Then let’s all go
in together.”

* * * * *

Chapter 10

We followed a line of
spirits into the largest room in the mansion, and found three seats
in the middle, toward the front. We descended on our seats so as to
not disturb those who were already sitting down, and we waited for
something to happen. This room had a grand view of the gardens
outside. There were several little bridges that arched over the
stream, and lots of sitting areas clustered by a grove of flowering
fruit trees.

I liked being with Leo and
Irene, they were not chatty spirits by any stretch of word, but I
never felt like I was encroaching on their privacy and they seemed
genuinely happy to have me with them.

All the seats were facing a
small white desk. Several spirits entered and the tallest of them,
a female, addressed us. Her hair was bluntly cut at her jaw line,
making her look severe and angular.

“
Welcome to your Gifts
training facility. My name is Milah. I am the director of this
facility and the training that goes on in here,” she said with a
deep sultry voice. “I will also be teaching some of the courses
myself.” Then she pointed to the spirits behind her. “These are
your other teachers and advisers. Their job is to take you from
your current skill level to a much higher one. The more you grow
your skills here the keener they will be in the next
life.

“
Now, let’s get to the
reason for this assembly and do it as efficiently as possible.
Those of you who cannot see auras please stand and follow Augusto
and these other teachers through this door,” she said, pointing to
her left. Reluctantly some of the spirits in the room stood up and
glided over to where the spirit called Augusto was standing. When
no one else stood up, she continued.

“
Very well, those of you
who can see auras and discern thoughts follow Sonora out this door
and the rest of you stay put.” Fewer spirits stood up and left the
room following Sonora
.
Once all the spirits were where they should be, Milah turned
her attention to those of us who were left.

“
Now then, you are here to
prepare to discern thoughts. Once you can discern thoughts, you can
move to Sonora’s class and there you will perfect that ability. So
with business out of the way, let’s get to work. Who can tell me
what an aura is?” She looked around the room for a while and when
no one volunteered the answer, she called on a heavyset male spirit
from the back of the room. He looked shocked at being called on and
his frame shook violently as he answered.

“
An aura is an energy
field that surrounds everything that has matter.”

“
Very good. I could see in
your aura that you knew the answer,” she said as her lips formed a
tight line that slightly curved upward. Then she added, “We will
talk about colors in just a moment, but who can tell me why seeing
auras is such an important part of our gift as Discerners?” Her
countenance looked less severe now, as if she was warming up to us
now, yet no one volunteered an answer.

“
You!” She pointed in my
direction. I was startled for a moment, but to my surprise, Agatha
was behind me and she took it upon herself to answer the
question.

“
Auras help us determine
in what frame of mind a spirit is,” she answered with derision, as
if answering the question was beneath her. The troubling thing was
that her aura and mine were still pretty close in color, although
hers was still a bit darker.

“
Yes, in part,” Milah
continued as she narrowed her eyes in Agatha’s direction. “But
there is more. It’s not just your current state of mind that an
aura explains. The inner core of the aura, the one closest to your
frame, tells us who the person is. The outer part of the aura tells
us what that person is feeling right now.

“
Again I ask: why is
seeing and interpreting auras such a big part of our
gift?”

“
As Discerners we are
supposed to know how other spirits are feeling so we can help them
better,” Irene volunteered.

“
In part, yes. What
else?”

“
We can learn a lot about
a spirit by reading their aura. We can see who they are and how
they are feeling,” someone answered.

“
Good! What else can you
tell me about auras?” Her eyes scanned the room looking for a new
victim. A female spirit toward the front raised her hand in the air
and waved it impatiently back and forth. For some reason, no one
seemed to find this as unusual as I did. Milah nodded in her
direction, acknowledging her unusual motion and the spirit
proceeded to give her much anticipated answer.

“
Your aura can also react
to other spirits’ auras. Auras can blend with each other or they
can clash. Usually this means that there is either closeness and
affinity or friction and aversion to that particular spirit.” Once
finished, the eager female looked extremely pleased with herself
and settled back into her chair.

“
Oh please…” Agatha
sneered from behind me.

“
Yes, that about covers
it,” Milah said, satisfied. “Now that we know what an aura is,
let’s talk about colors. As I mentioned earlier, the inner color
represents that person’s or spirit’s personality.”

“
If we see auras now, will
we see auras as mortals too?” a spirit interrupted.

Milah looked annoyed, but
answered anyway. “It will be harder as a mortal to see auras, but
certainly not impossible. You may not even realize that you see
them, because if you familiarize yourselves well with auras now, it
will be quite a natural thing to you there. The point of this class
is to make it second nature for you to see auras and understand
them, so this will become part of your mortal experience as much as
breathing air will.” Milah started pacing as she spoke. One could
tell that she felt very passionately about this subject.