The Afterlife series Box Set (Books 1-3) (12 page)

“I hadn’t thought about it in that way,” she said. “Thank you.”

C
HAPTER 14

W
E BOTH WENT BACK
to bed and slept until the next morning. I had no more bad dreams after that but I wondered why Jackline remembered everything so vividly about her sister and her death, when I seemed to remember nothing about my loved ones but some faceless parents who might be worried about me. Maybe it was just as Mick had told me—no two stories were alike. Maybe what each of us remembered was individual as well.

Speaking of Mick, just as I got out of bed in the morning, he came to me. I smiled when I saw him. He sat on my bed with a grin.

“What’s with you today?” I asked.

He smiled at Jackline as she exited the dormitory and left us alone.

“You are not going to class today,” he said.

“What are you talking about?” I said, not believing him.

“I have gotten permission from Rahmiel to take you with me.”

I looked at him a little confused. “To go where?”

“You’ll see.”

“Does it involve leaving the school area?” I asked a little too excitedly.

Mick smiled and nodded.

“It does?”

He nodded again.

“But why?” I asked.

“I told Rahmiel that I thought you were ready for it. And she trusts me.”

I looked at him skeptically.

“Ready for what?”

He got up from the bed and leaned toward me. “Ready to see what spirits do?”

“Sure!”

“Well it is not the only thing we do, but it is a huge thing.”

I stopped. “But … I don’t know how to make myself invisible yet. People might see me if I go to earth.”

“I thought about that,” he said and took out a small bottle with some pink fluid in it. Then he handed it to me.

“It is an invisibility potion. Drink it and no one will be able to see you.”

I looked at him even more skeptically but took the bottle.

“Trust me, it will be fine,” he said with a smile.

I looked at the pink liquid and then at Mick. He was still nodding and telling me to trust him. Then I opened the bottle.

“Well, here goes nothing,” I said and drank it. It tasted rather good, actually. Like strawberry.

When I was done, I looked down at myself. I looked exactly the same as before. Nothing had changed. Then I looked at Mick.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing happened.”

“Well, what did you expect?”

“To be invisible.”

“Only to humans. Are you human?”

“Well, I guess not.”

“See, no worries. I have got it under control. No humans will be able to see you now.” He reached out his hand and I grabbed it, feeling a little like Wendy going off to Neverland with Peter Pan.

“Remember no brick walls,” I said just before we took off.

Seconds later, we flew over snowcapped mountains and then the smooth glassy surface of the seemingly endless ocean. It was as if I had plunged into a fabulous dream.
This is the way to travel
, I thought. Flying through fluffy white clouds, the whole world beneath us in the bright sunlight. Mick and I both had big smiles on our faces as we flew with high speed through the thin air.

“So where exactly are we going?” I asked when we took a break halfway. We were lying on a huge cloud staring at the blue sky above us.

Mick sat up and looked at me. “We are going to get a spirit and guide her into our world.”

My eyes got big. “What?”

“You heard me,” Mick said still smiling.

“You mean to say I am going to see a human die?”

He shook his head. “Nothing dies. She will leave her human body and go with us.”

I have to say I had my concerns. I had never seen anyone die, except the people in that book—never in real life. I wasn’t sure I could handle it.

Mick grabbed my hand and looked in my eyes.

“It will be life-changing for you, I promise. Death is never the end. After this you won’t think of it as the end anymore. That is earthly thinking and you no longer belong to that world.”

  I nodded. “So that’s what this trip is all about. You want me to change how I look at Jason’s death. You want me not to desire to stop it. You want to show me that death isn’t a bad thing.”

“That is right,” Mick said.

I got up and floated into air. Mick followed me.

“Is that so bad?” he asked.

I didn’t look at him. Then he grabbed my hand and pulled me so I was forced to look at him.

“Tell me what I did wrong,” he said.

I looked at him. “First of all, I don’t like being treated like a child who needs to learn a lesson. I thought you brought me here today because you cared about me, because you wanted to spend time with me. Not some teaching in how to think properly. Second, I don’t think it will work. I am never going to think it is the best for Jason to have to go through being beaten by his step-dad until he doesn’t breathe anymore. How could that ever be good for him? Explain that to me.”

Mick nodded. “I hear what you are saying. I really do. And I did bring you here because I care about you and because I want to spend time with you. If I didn’t love being with you, if I didn’t care about you, why should I care about how you feel in your heart?”

I had to say he made his point. And I was thrilled to hear that he loved spending time with me and that he cared about me.

“But I am not going to change my mind about Jason,” I said with pride in my voice. “I still think it’s wrong to know this and not do something. There has to be a better way.”

An awkward silence hung between us until Mick finally spoke. 

“Shall we continue?” He asked.

I nodded and granted him a little smile.

After what felt like several uneventful hours of flying, I had to admit I was getting kind of tired. The landscape underneath us had changed repeatedly and after awhile I didn’t look at it any longer. All of a sudden we reached a big city with bright lights shining in the haze surrounding it like a comforter on a bed.

Mick headed toward a tall gray building in the middle of the city and I followed.

“What is this place? Like an office or something?” I asked as we landed on the roof and caught our breath.

Mick looked at a pocket watch in his silk vest under his jacket. “We don’t have much time,” he said, looking seriously at me. He floated down the side of the building and stopped at a window.

“This one you will be able to go through,” he said and put his right palm on the glass.

I nodded and watched him disappear through it. Then I followed him.

We entered a room filled with people. It seemed to be a waiting room. In it we saw a lot of crying people hugging and holding hands. I stared at two children no more than five or six years old for a while. After crying and hugging each other they prayed with their small hands folded. Mick signaled me to follow him. I felt a strong urge to comfort these children, as well all these people as I passed them. I felt their sorrow and worry so strong in my heart. It was almost unbearable.

We went through another window and entered a room where a man knelt alone on the floor crying.

“What is he doing?” I whispered to Mick.

“Praying.” Mick looked at me and smiled. “He is asking God not to let his wife die.”

“What happened to her?”

“She was in a car accident a few hours ago.”

“Where is she now?”

“In the operating room next door.”

Now the man became loud in his praying. He began to yell, “Is this how you treat a man of God? Is this how you treat me when I have been faithful to you all of my life?”

“Is it his wife we are here to get?”

Mick looked at me and nodded.

“That’s cruel!” I said.

“Life and death are cruel. But it is part of our world and theirs.”

I wanted to cry. I couldn’t believe Mick could be so cynical about this. Here we stood next to a man  crying his heart out to God to save the wife he obviously loved, and we knew she would die in a matter of minutes. We were there to take her away. That was horrible. I became mad at God and the Angels for their cruelty toward humans. The man was pleading; why didn’t God listen? I had always thought God answered prayers, but now I saw with my own eyes that he was in fact not going to answer this prayer. Mick had been right about one thing, this experience was going to be life-changing for me all right. Just not in the way he wanted it to be. I was afraid because I was about to lose all faith.

Suddenly we heard a lot of noise from the room next door. I followed Mick through a round window and found myself in the operating room where the woman was lying on the table. Several doctors and nurses worked around her, talking agitatedly, even yelling at each other from time to time. They too would be haunted by this experience of not being able to save this woman.

I looked at Mick and then back at the woman. I recognized her. She was that woman from the book—the woman who was to die just before Jason.

C
HAPTER 15

I
T WAS HORRIBLE TO
stand there and watch the doctors and nurses fighting for the woman’s life, especially when I knew it was all in vain. She would die anyway. It didn’t matter what they did to her. Then a high-pitched sound from the heart monitor filled the room and the doctors started yelling.

“We’re losing her!”

At that particular moment something truly astonishing happened. The ceiling of the room opened above us. A bright light entered, followed by the most beautiful music that drowned out the high-pitched tone and the yelling. I felt so drawn to the music and the light and had a great peace in my heart. Not one of the doctors or nurses in the room seemed to notice it.

“That’s beautiful singing,” I said to Mick. “What is it?”

He smiled at me. “It is the Angels singing at the gateway of Heaven. They are welcoming her spirit.”

I looked down and saw the woman rising from the table and looking straight at us. She smiled widely while her spirit left her body.

Then suddenly I heard something that made my body shiver. The grumbling and a groaning sounded like an animal approaching. I turned and saw hundreds of small shadows on the wall behind the woman. The groaning turned into a roaring as the shadows grew larger and larger.

I looked at Mick, who seemed to have his guard up now.

“Those are the evil spirits, the Se’irims. They have come to take her as well. The light keeps them away from her. When there is light the darkness has to leave.”

I felt chills running down my back. I felt really creepy about that noise they made and the shadows on the wall. The roaring was like the earth had opened and was ready to suck any life into it. All of a sudden I felt so hopeless, like all joy and peace was sucked right out of me. Then I heard whispering, like someone was really close to me whispering words in my ears.

“Poor woman…”

It sounded like a hoarse wheeze
.
I turned to see if was anyone behind me, but no one was there. Just a low whisper.

 “So cruel… she has to leave her children … No loving God would do that.”

Mick looked at me and saw that something was wrong.

“Are they getting to you? Are they messing with your mind?”

I shook my head. “I’ll be fine.”

“Meghan … Meghan … Why are you lying to him?”

I began to move my hands and head around as if I had a small fly buzzing near my face.

 “Meghan… coooome with us … we know how you died … we can bring you to your parents … We can help Jason. It is wrong not to help him. We can stop him from dying. We can bring peace to your parent’s worried hearts. Just come with us …”

I held my hands to my head.

“Leave me alone!” I said out loud.

Mick stared at me. Then he took my hand and pulled me closer to him.

“Don’t let them get to you like that. You have to control your mind. Don’t trust your emotions. Your thoughts and feelings will try to deceive you. Only you can stop these things from getting rooted in your mind and heart.”

“I am trying, I am trying,” I said.

“Good.”

Then Mick reached his hand toward the woman and she took it. He looked at me to do the same.

The woman grabbed on to me and together we pulled her spirit with us. As we did I saw the shadows retreat from the wall and slowly the growling noise disappeared as well.

First we took her to see her husband so she could hear his prayer. Carefully and gently she patted him on the hair and kissed him. When she was done we took her to see her children. They were still holding on to one another, praying. The woman wrapped her arms around them and kissed them gently. Then I saw a few tears slip from her eyes. She looked at us as if to say she was ready and then Mick and I started pulling her toward the light.

I was happy to see that she at least got to say goodbye to her loved ones; even though they didn’t know she was there, maybe they could have felt her just a little bit, maybe just sensed that she was close. She didn’t utter a word to us as we flew her toward the light and the singing and I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t feel like talking either. It was much too beautiful and magical. As we came closer the light shone brighter and finally we were met by two giant Angels who descended toward us, caught up the woman’s spirit, and flew away with her while they were still singing their calming song. The three of them disappeared in the distance.

“Wow, that was amazing! Even more beautiful than I have ever imagined. Wow! That takes away my breath,” I said.

“I know. Just wait until the day you get to go through the gates. You have no idea what is waiting for you there.”

“But there’s one thing I don’t understand. What happens to the woman now? Doesn’t she have to go to the Academy?”

“Yes. First she goes to meet with Jesus. And then she comes back to us and we put her on the boat.”