Veiled (24 page)

“
Thanks,”
Alex said acidly.

“
What’s wrong? Besides
being bored to death.”
I shot a look at
the suspicious spirit.

“
You’re in my head, can’t
you just extract my feelings? I don’t feel like
explaining.”

I searched his head, and
what I found there was not good. It was nice, to be this open with
him, but at times like this…I felt his feelings so keenly that part
of me would have rather not known at all.

“
Do you like what you see,
Tess?”

“
No,”
I said flatly.

“
Yet there it is! What do I
do with it?”

“
You deal with it,”
I said, but as I said it I knew that it would be
much more involved than just that. His feelings startled me so
much, that I had no ready answers for him.

He was jealous of Russell
who got a better assignment right off the bat, and then to add
insult to injury, he gets stuck here, with Mr. Sunshine over there
and no one to talk to. Then the people he has to keep records for
were, in his opinion, most average and dull. He felt that if life
was going to be that boring he would rather not live at all. The
repetitious menial jobs they did, day in and day out, without
variation at all, were driving him insane. They had no apparent
passion for anything beyond mere survival, and this frustrated and
annoyed him to no end.

“
How, Tess, do I deal with
these feelings?”

I thought about what to
tell him, when I remembered my recent experience with Dayspring. I
knew that there was something in there that would be of use to
Alex, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint the actual memory that would
help him. Perhaps Alex would be able to find it himself, so I
unleashed my memories on to his mind.

“
Wow, wow, wow! What was
that? Go slower. I want to know what she told you. Where did you
go?”
His questions bombarded my
brain.

“
OK, OK, I’ll start from
the beginning.”

He looked at me
eagerly,
“Finally, something interesting to
think about,”
he thought, so he settled to
receive the whole story, straight from my head. The story however,
of my recent encounter with Dayspring was intermingled by random
annotations we had to make of the events below us—so it took some
time to convey the whole thing.

When I was done, he started
incorporating all this new information into his brain, and seeing
it from his point of view.

“
Do you remember rescuing
me from Agatha?”
I asked him after some
time.

“
Not exactly, all I
remember from being an intelligence is being drawn to you, your
presence influenced me somehow and I needed to be near you. But
Agatha was in the way. I felt like…”

I smiled. I could see it
right in his mind all his feelings exposed to me.
“You felt like I would complete you,”
I told him.

He turned to face
me.
“Yeah, just like that.”

We looked at each other for
some time, and this was not missed by our little chaperone, whose
eyes were fixed on us.

I thought it would be
prudent to get some work done, so I disconnected with Alex and took
some notes. But after some time, I too was growing bored of
scribing and was beginning to understand why Alex was so depressed.
Just then I remembered the conversation I was trying to recall.
Dayspring had said that opposition is what makes everyone strong.
This Angelic Mission would no doubt push Alex to the very limits of
endurance, but it would only make him stronger—if he made the right
choices with it.

I wanted to convey this
message to him quickly before I forgot it, so I elbowed him to get
his attention. Not only did I get his attention, but the other
spirit too. He scolded us with his eyes, now sure that we were up
to something and he promptly glided over to our side. He perched
his thin little face between us looking down into our scrolls—they
were full now that we had a bit of time to catch up on the notes.
He seemed satisfied, but still suspicious as he glided back to his
spot among the more dutiful spirits.

“
Enduring…”
Alex thought sarcastically
,
once our minds were linked
again.
“For how long, Tess? What if I never
get out of here until it’s time for me to live?”

“
Alex, there is a lesson
for you to learn here, otherwise you wouldn’t be here,”
I added.

“
What lesson is that? How
to live a useless and boring life? How to waste your mortality and
be swallowed up in mediocrity? They are ignorant and
average.”

“
This is not your Freedom
Fighters class, Alex. You didn’t come here to analyze Caesar’s war
strategies. Nor is it your Wisdom class where you discuss Socrates
and Solomon. You can’t pass judgment on these people, they are
doing the best they can with what they have. Besides, I don’t even
think they are literate.”

“
They are not,”
Alex assured me.

“
They are good, honest,
hard working people,”
I said with
irritation.
“A simple quiet life sounds
like a very acceptable—no, preferable—life to me. Look at Dayspring
and her brother. They never had a moment's rest, a chance to enjoy
the peace they fought for, a chance to love and be loved while in
mortality.”

Alex looked away and took
some notes. He was silent, his mind intent on the notes he was
taking
. “Alex?”
I
asked after a while, hoping to reach him over the wall he placed
between us.

“
What?”
he snapped as he allowed my thoughts back in.

“
What is
wisdom?”

“
The correct use of
knowledge,”
he recited. He had the words
memorized, but they had no meaning to him.

“
Interesting. I wonder if
you could be wise and illiterate?”
This
last comment made Alex stop and think for a moment—but only for a
moment.

“
You are glowing,”
he said without emotion, and then looked down at
his own, un-glowing pendant.

I looked pathetically back
at him. I wished I could stay with him and help him sort this
out.

“
I will be fine, Tess,
really I will. You gave me a lot to think about—maybe I’m the one
who’s been unwise,”
he said
humbly.

I gave him a rueful smile
and a spirit appeared out of nowhere. He headed my way; he was
obviously here to replace me.

“
I love you,”
I told Alex as I handed my scroll over to the
spirit.
“Now be a good Angel and learn your
lessons well,”
I teased.

He smiled, more for my sake
than his. My heart ached as I turned to leave him, but I had to
continue. We knew when we volunteered for this, that our time would
no longer be our own, and that we had to go wherever we were
assigned to go.

Presently the pendant was
showing me a long list of classes I had to attend, and as I exited
the Angelic Missions building I ran, literally, into Henry, who
seemed to be in quite a hurry. He almost knocked me over, and even
then looked too preoccupied to notice.

“
Henry, hi! Have you
finally come to volunteer?” I asked him, and he looked up,
startled.

“
Tess?” he responded,
quite surprised, as if I had just jolted him out of a trance. Then
he seemed to register my question and his whole demeanor
changed.

“
I don’t have to volunteer
as an angel to do important stuff!” he said angrily.

“
I didn’t mean…” I
stammered.

“
Just because all of you
have pledged the rest of your spiritual existence as an angel,
doesn’t mean that I can’t do just the same—or more—as a regular
spirit!”

“
No…I’m sure it
doesn’t.”

“
I’ll have you know, that
I have a very important job right now—so important, in fact, that I
can’t tell you what it is. And I am wasting my time right now even
talking to you about it.”

“
OK…”

Henry looked at me for a
moment. His face and his aura were a mixture of frustration,
confusion, and contempt. I tried to read his thoughts, but his mind
was clearly blocked. He had a secret that he was guarding, and was
not going to let me probe him at all.

He was about to leave, but
hesitated. He opened his mouth and then shut it again. And with
even more frustration than before, he stormed off. I watched him go
and tried to get more information out of his aura—it was an
unhealthy color for sure. It reminded me of the churnings my own
aura did for a while.

* * * * *

Chapter 21

Agatha paced anxiously back
and forth inside the cave she ruled over. She was growing
impatient, not with others as much as herself.

There was something nagging
her, something that was buried deep within her, but could not be
accessed. She tried and tried to analyze it and bring it forward,
but it wouldn’t come.

She knew this much. Tess
somehow held the key to unlock this mystery. She didn’t know why
exactly. The Second One had mentioned to her once, that they were
‘intricately connected’, but this never made any sense to Agatha.
She didn’t feel close to Tess. In fact, she hated her in every way,
and had no memories of ever dwelling with her—so how could they be
connected at all?

He could be so
infuriating!
Agatha thought.
Why couldn’t he treat me like an equal? He was
always patronizing me! Now Tess has developed her gift too much—a
mind reader! Add to that the fact that her words always have too
much sway with me. It’s as if the Second One had given her lessons
on persuasive tactics.
This made her
simmering temper come to full boil. She prided herself in her
ability to persuade others, and the thought that Tess, of all
spirits, could do that as well was unacceptable.

She was juggling a lot of
different things, things that needed a cool head. She had to keep
the Fallen Angels in check, making sure they not only obeyed her,
but also performed all their duties. She could care less about
their training, but she knew that if she didn’t keep them busy, she
would have an uprising on her hands, and that could not
happen.

Then she had the suspicious
ones, Eugenia and Marcel, who would like nothing better than to be
Sovereigns once more. Then Eros, who had to keep his mouth shut,
and that was no easy task. Then there were the odious flashes that
she kept having of Tess that she couldn’t explain.

Her pacing did not slow,
even when she had a crowd of spirits looking at her as she moved
impatiently to and fro on her suspended rocky island.

“
Queen!” said Eugenia
louder, hoping to get her attention this time.

Agatha stopped and looked
around, startled by the sound of her name.

“
What!” she barked
back.

“
We are back from our
missions. Do you want to hear our report?”

“
Yes, yes, of course.”
Agatha stopped and tried to focus her attention on the reports,
hoping that there would be something there to help her unravel this
mystery of hers.

“
Go ahead, Eugenia. Did
you follow her as you were told?”

Eugenia’s face contorted at
being addressed so casually.

“
I have, my Queen,” she
said, full of sarcasm.

“
Um, excuse me! But we
were here first. We should report first, we were patiently waiting
here for a while and...”

Agatha rolled her eyes.
“Yes, Amanda, you may go first. Did you and Anthony find the Book
of Secrets?”

“
No.”

Agatha’s eyes closed,
trying to control her now simmering impatience. Eugenia smirked and
stifled a laugh.

“
The Eternals must have
taken the spiritual version of the book back to their world,”
Anthony said.

“
Or they destroyed it,”
Amanda interrupted.

“
Or they destroyed it,
because it is nowhere to be found. However…” Anthony paused, hoping
to have everyone’s attention as he announced his big discovery.
“But we know where the physical book is.” He waited for some form
of congratulatory recognition, but got none.

Agatha’s eyes remained shut
as they spoke, waiting patiently for their report to end. “So…what
good would a physical book do to us? We can’t touch it, we can’t
open it, we can’t turn its pages, so we can do nothing with it!”
Her voice gained crescendo as she spoke.

Eugenia was now giggling
with Marcel off to one side. Agatha heard them, but chose to ignore
them.

“
But we can, my Queen,”
Amanda pleaded.

Agatha opened her eyes and
looked at her with irritation. “How?” she shouted.

“
We had the pleasure of
encountering this most willing mortal, who happens to both see and
hear us perfectly. We introduced ourselves as Angels,” Amanda said
as she stole a quick sideways glance at Anthony, who responded with
a sly smile of encouragement, “and told her that she needs to find
this book for us. She is on her way to this book right now.” Amanda
smiled smugly.