Veiled (36 page)

“
Max is choosing a ring
for her to wear.”

Leo rolled his eyes then
bent down and pointing to a random ring said to Max, “This one,
give her this one.”

Obediently Max picked the
one that Leo had suggested and put it on Celeste’s
finger.

“
What made you choose that
one?” Celeste asked intrigued.

“
I don’t know…” Max
pondered. “It just felt right,” he said—and we laughed.

“
OK. Enough of that now,
we have to go!” Leo said as he recovered from laughing.

“
We better go. I have a
feeling that time is of the essence,” Max said as he got to his
feet.

“
Yeah…me too, but where
should we go? I mean…we have to get married first right?” Her face
was incredulous.

“
Yes, of course,” Max said
with an assuring smile. “We get married first.”

“
Padre Fernández!” I
shouted.

“
And I know just who to go
to for that matter,” Max said as he helped her gather all her
belongings and then picked up the few possessions that he had.
“Padre Fernández was the priest that helped me get an education. He
will marry us, and if we are lucky we might be able to rest at my
old house for a few hours before we head to the coast to catch a
boat to Argentina.” He looked at her eagerly, knowing that she
would love that idea.

“
Argentina, really?
Oh—Wait, what’s your first name?”

Max smiled broadly and
laughed, “Maximiliano, but just call me Max.”

They got to Padre
Fernández’s chapel at the break of dawn, and oddly enough, Padre
Fernández was waiting for them. Leo had flown ahead and was in one
corner of the chapel, quietly chatting with another
angel.

“
Hi, I see you warned
him,” I said to Leo while pointing to the old priest.

“
Yeah, Jose and I woke
Padre Fernández up and gave him a heads up,” Leo informed me with
his usual impish grin.

I gave him a quizzical
look, knowing full well he had some sort of mischievous fun while
trying to wake up the priest.

Apparently, Padre
Fernández’s angel and Leo had worked together before. They were the
ones behind the plot to educate Max, and now they had prepared the
old priest for this precise moment.

The three of us witnessed
the short marriage ceremony that Padre Fernández performed. All
three mortals had tears in their eyes, yet not from
sadness.

“
One more thing!” the old
priest said once the ceremony was over. “I have a wedding gift for
you.” He turned and hurried over to the altar. On it was a huge
white leather-bound, and well worn bible. He took it and shuffled
back over to Max and Celeste. “This Bible,” he said with shaky
hands, “represents the bulk of my earthly possessions. I want you
both to have it,” he said as a tear slid from his wrinkly
face.

Celeste leaned over and
gently kissed the priest on the cheek. He blushed and
smiled.

“
What can I say, she likes
priests,” Max teased, and they all laughed.

Leo and I followed the
happy couple from a distance as they made their way to the little
cottage.

“
I think that once you see
my home you might regret what you have just done,” Max said
apologetically.

Celeste hit him on the arm,
reminding me of the many times she had done the same to me. I knew
that my mission was over before the pendant started
glowing.

The sun was barely rising
on the horizon now, and our pendants glowed with such intensity
that they made the morning light seem weak.

Instinctively, Leo and I
raised our pendants to see the instructions.

“
Earth Cultures and
Current Events Class,” both pendants said.

“
There’s another war about
to start, and I bet we’ll all have to get training for
that.”

“
I just hope they can get
to Argentina without any problems. I hope they can sell that
jewelry and get some—” I was cut off mid sentence by Leo’s
dismissive hand.

“
They’ll be fine. Jose and
I made the old priest buy two tickets to Argentina, and he tucked
them inside the Bible. He literally used all of his money to buy
those tickets.”

Leo put one of his arms
around me and we rose up. Below us, two little dots entered the
small cottage and closed the doors behind them.

* * * * *

Chapter 30

I stopped by the Angelic
Missions building to see who was still around. My fears were
validated—Russell and Nancy were gone. I stared at their names and
silently wished them good luck.

Alex was still working with
Henry, and I wondered how Estelle was fairing, now as the mother of
a young Russell. Valerie, Dane, Dorian, and Luz along with Amor and
Paz were still here and on different missions. I noticed that Katie
had been assigned to take the same class as me, so I headed there
at once.

Katie and I sat by each
other, and she glowed with a new kind of light. I was about to ask
her about it, but the teacher began his class and at the same
moment, Agatha glided in followed by Eros. I scrutinized their
auras. On the outside they looked perfectly happy and content,
proud even. On the inside they were dark and vile, and as soon as
they found a seat, the auras of the spirits around them started to
change. They seemed to contaminate the auras around them—like an
infection.

They didn’t notice me and I
was glad for this. I didn’t want Katie’s bright and happy aura to
be polluted by theirs. I studied them from my seat for a while,
trying to see if I could discern anything from them. But it was
hard, due to the number of spirits around me—Katie especially who
couldn’t wait to share her exiting news with me, and parts of it
kept floating away toward me, unsolicited. But nothing could be
properly explained until class was out, so she had to restrain
herself.

My mind kept shifting from
Katie’s impatient thoughts to Agatha’s and Eros’s aura. I wanted to
get some useful information that would shed some light on the whole
Henry mystery. I also wanted to get more information about the so
called Fallen Angels, which I knew Agatha would be in charge of.
But whatever secrets they had, stayed with them. They seemed to be
very interested in whatever the teacher was saying about the
current war on Earth. What they learned seemed to please them to
the extreme. That’s when I realized that perhaps I should be paying
attention to the teacher as well, maybe then I would get some
answers. So I spent the rest of class ignoring Katie’s stray
thoughts and listening to the lecture.

Once class was over, Agatha
and Eros left, and the spirits that had been seated around them for
that period of time slowly regained a normal looking aura color.
Katie was now free to explain herself and did so at
once.

She was all in a flutter
and her words spilled out like a flood of exuberant information.
His name was Jase, he had been another Angel assigned to watch over
an aborigine tribe in the Amazon. They didn’t get along at all at
first. He was also an animal enthusiast, and was an infuriating
know-it-all. He had the gift of healing, but for animals. He worked
closely with the tribe’s doctor, helping him figure out the cause
for an epidemic on some jungle creature that I couldn’t pronounce.
When he was failing and couldn’t figure out why, Katie used her
gift of communication to get some answers from the animals
themselves. Apparently that’s when Jase started to see Katie in a
different light, because up until that time he thought she was,
“too flighty to be taken seriously.”

“
He couldn’t have done it
without me and he knew it, and that’s when he started to notice
me,” Katie said smugly. “At first he was too stiff and serious, but
once he saw that I could be frivolous and functional at the same
time, he relaxed and we actually started having a good time.” She
beamed.

“
We loved being there with
that tribe, Tess, and we promised each other that no matter where
we were born in the world, we would make our way back to this same
tribe and find each other here again. It is going to be our meeting
point.”

“
Katie, that’s a beautiful
story!” I said, truly happy for her.

“
It’s not a story, it’s
real!” Katie grabbed both my hands and started bouncing up and down
like a spring.

“
I’m so happy for you!” I
told her. “When do I get to meet him?”

She sighed and looked
crestfallen for a moment. “He’s been assigned to another
mission—he’s a Herald you know,” Katie said
significantly.

Our pendants had been
glowing but we were ignoring them. Finally I looked down at her
pendant and she picked it up with resignation.

“
Let’s see… oh! Have you
ever been to the Eternal’s court?” Katie asked
surprised.

“
No, have you?”

“
Well…I’m about to,” she
said simply.

I looked down at my own
pendant. “Eternals’ Court, Fifth Arbor, Third Path.”

Outside the planet’s orbit
we saw Dayspring, flying impatiently.

“
Tess!” Dayspring said, a
little annoyed. “What took you so long?”

“
It was my fault,” Katie
answered. “I made her listen to my ramblings.”

Dayspring narrowed her eyes
and studied Katie for a while, then smirked and shook her head.
“OK…let’s go. They are waiting for us.”

“
Who is waiting?” I
asked.

“
You’ll see.” Dayspring
turned and flew toward the planet.

I wasn’t prepared for what
I saw when we arrived at the Eternals’ planet. Our spirit world was
beautiful, the way that Earth would be one day. But the Eternals’
planet was indescribable. There were flowers as big as we were,
each path had a different hue and the vegetation was all in full
bloom.

The third path was blooming
with light turquoise color, and all the plants there were in that
shade. Only the leaves added variety, being different shades of
green and white, but the flowers and the fruit were all turquoise.
A few of the flowers looked familiar, but most of them I had never
seen before, which only meant that they would not grow on
Earth.

There were animals roaming
free as well, and fish swimming in some of the ponds. Birds,
insects, and animals of all kinds were going about their day
without disturbing anyone or each other. The most astonishing thing
was the number of small children that ran around. Some were
playing, some were listening to stories that were being read by
Angels. A group of children seemed to be learning about an insect,
because they were taking turns holding a magnifying glass and
looking through it, while a female Cherub gave them instructions.
Another group was painting a picture of a wiggly baby, who posed
for them from a little crib made out of huge light turquoise
petals.

We passed a group that was
playing some instruments I had never seen, and I was astonished to
see how little they all were.

“
Who are all these kids?”
I asked, a little mesmerized.

“
All the children from
every planet that die in childhood come here,” Dayspring said with
a broad smile. “This is one of the main reasons why I like being
one of the Eternals’ personal guards. I get to spend a lot of time
here with them.”

“
Are they immortal?” Katie
asked. “They’re not spirits.”

“
They are not immortal,
they’re…more like Aeonians—they have physical bodies that don’t
age.”

“
Wouldn’t it be kind of a
punishment, to be stuck being a certain age for a long time?” I
said, and then I remembered how some people actually chose that for
themselves.

“
Well, they experience
time like the Eternals do, so it actually doesn’t seem that long
for them. They stay in this suspended state until their parents are
ready to come and take them back. You see, the parents eventually
get to finish raising them, but in the meantime, the Eternals keep
them here and they get the royal treatment—literally.”

“
I have a hard time seeing
Kerubiel here,” I said.

“
Are you kidding? He likes
it here even more than I do. He’s currently playing ‘ride the
cherub’ with a group of them,” Dayspring laughed.

“
So why are we here?”
Katie asked. “Not that I’m not happy to be here…” she
corrected.

“
You are here as guests,
and…you are here to work, of course! You won’t be able to hold the
children for obvious reasons, but they love to hear stories, and I
think you two have quite a few to share.” Dayspring winked at Katie
and her aura turned bright red.

Arbor number five was
filled with children, and the Angel that was with them was saying
goodbye to them.

“
Katie, you have to be in
another part of the planet, let me escort you there,” Dayspring
announced, then she turned to me. “I leave you in good company,
Tess. Have fun!”

I was soon engulfed by the
children who all wanted different things from me. It took me a
while to calm them all down, and then I asked each of them in turn
what they wanted to do. We made a long list of their favorite
activities and then got to the task of doing them. I told them
stories, mainly Celeste’s life story. Then they wanted to race, so
I flew in front of them and they tried to catch me—which was
impossible for them even when they thought they had me. Then we
went for a swim with some enigmatic looking sea creatures. As we
were coming out of the water, Katie was there with her little group
of children. She insisted that we follow them to a place they had
just come from.