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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.

  Chapter 15

  It 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.”

  “But I didn’t do that when I died?”

  Mick smiled and nodded. “Yes you did. Everybody does. You just don’t remember it. It is the same for everybody. That is why no one knows exactly what you talk to Jesus about when you die. Because you won’t remember. The next time you see him in Heaven you will remember that you have talked to him, just not what it was about.”

  “Wow.”

  “I know.”

  “So we will take her to the boat after this and there she will wake up not remembering anything?”

  “Exactly. She might remember a little from the car accident, but she will not remember her husband or children or the meeting with Jesus.”

  “But that is so cruel. She wants to be with her children and husband.”

  “I know, but she needs to learn her new life before she can visit them. She needs to accept that she is no longer part of their world. And wouldn’t it be even crueler if she remembered them and knew they were mourning her, but she couldn’t visit them? And even if she did, she could not stay with them and live the life they used to live.”

  I sighed. This was a lot to take in at once, I thought. “I guess you are right.”

  I have no idea how long we waited. I lost track of time all that day. The woman and the Angels had disappeared through some thick clouds. Mick and I found a small one to sit on while we were waiting. I had a lot on my mind. Jason, Jackline, Mick, the woman, my parents. It seemed as though the more that was revealed to me about this world, the less I understood.

  “They are coming back,” I heard Mick whisper.

  I got up and lifted my head toward the sky with the heavy clouds. Out of them I saw the bright light shining through and in that light appeared the two majestic Angels once again with the woman between them. She was smiling even wider and looked so incredibly happy and peaceful. I couldn’t help smiling myself.

  They approached us and handed the woman to Mick. Then one of them bent down and whispered something in his ear. Mick nodded and looked at the woman.

  The Angels kissed the woman on her forehead before they soared into the air again and in the wink of an eye they were gone.

  I kept staring in their direction. I was in awe. They were so magnificent.

  “You are going back,” I heard Mick say to the woman.

  I turned and stared at him and then at the woman. She nodded.

  “Jesus told me he is answering my husband’s and children’s prayers,” she said. Then she turned her head and looked at me. “It is so beautiful up there that part of me wishes I could stay.”

  I was speechless as I reached out and took her hand. As we descended I felt such a joy in my heart and a great relief as well. I was so happy those children weren’t going to lose their mother after all. I was relieved that Jesus had heard the husband’s pleading and responded to it. It gave me hope too.

  As we entered the operating room, everything was quiet except for the high-pitched sound from the heart monitor indicating her heart had stopped beating. The doctors stood next to her body and stared at her with heads bowed.

  “We lost her,” one of them said.

  The woman looked at me and Mick and thanked us just before she went back into her human body again. A second later the heart monitor started beeping and everyone in the room turned to look at her as the life floated back into her earthly body.

  “She is back … She is back!” another doctor yelled. Then the room got very busy and we followed them from a distance.

  We went into the waiting room where the husband now had joined his children. They were still crying and he was holding them, trying to comfort them. That’s when I saw Mick do something really amazing. He whispered in each of their ears. Comforting words like: “She will be fine. Don’t worry. God heard your prayer.” And I sensed that they started to calm down a little. The youngest stopped crying so hard and the dad smiled at them and said: “I know she will be fine. I just know it in my heart.” His voice was so reassuring and peaceful that he managed to calm his kids down.

  A second later the door opened and everybody was quiet. A doctor came in and took off his operating mask.

  The husband got up and walked toward him. The nervousness and anxiety made his hands shake.

  The doctor sighed and looked at him. “We thought we lost her there, but she is out of danger now.”

  I looked at the children and saw their faces light up while the husband fell on his knees and started thanking God for answering his prayer. I felt a tear roll down my cheek and wiped it away with the back of my hand.

  “Will she remember anything?” I asked when we had gotten back to the Academy and were sitting on my bed. Everyone in my dormitory was already asleep.

  “Not likely,” Mick answered. “Some remember bits and pieces and remember leaving their body, but that is normally all they remember.”

  I nodded. It made sense that people shouldn’t remember. Who would be afraid of dying if they knew for sure they would go to a greater place afterward? Who would want to make the most of their life on earth? Plus, it wouldn’t take any faith if everybody knew for sure. They didn’t have to believe or trust in anything which I had to admit I had learned was the hardest.

  “By the way,” Mick said as he got up from the bed. “Now you have learned how to make yourself invisible to humans.”

  I looked at him with disbelief. “What do you mean?”

  He pulled out the bottle with the pink wate
r from his jacket again. “This.”

  “The potion? What about it?”

  Mick smiled.

  ”Oh no, you did not!” I said.

  He nodded. “I did. It is nothing but water with a hint of strawberry.”

  I got up and grabbed the bottle. I looked at it while shaking the bottle in front of my face. “So it had absolutely no effect on me? It didn’t make me invisible or anything like that?”

  Mick shook his head with that grin of his. “Nope.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it is all about believing. Flying, going through things, and making yourself invisible—it is all about believing that you can.”

  “Clever,” I said. “Because I believed that the potion could make me invisible to humans, I was actually capable of doing it?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  I smiled and sat on the bed again. “Well, I guess I should thank you then.”

  Chapter 16

  I woke up feeling really happy. As I looked around I realized the dormitory was empty. Everyone had left but me. Thinking I must have overslept, I hurried out of bed and down to Hornam Hall where breakfast just had been served. I got to the table where we usually sit, but no one was there except Jackline, who got up from the table as soon as I approached it. I stopped her.

  “Where is everybody?” I asked.

  She lifted both hands and shook her head.

  “I don’t want to be a part of any of this,” she said and hurried away from me like someone running from a wild beast.

  What was she talking about? I thought to myself as I sat down and started eating my food. A moment later the Cornwell twins arrived. For the first time I was actually quite happy to see them. I smiled at them, but didn’t get any reaction back. Then Nigel came and even he had a hard time looking at me. Something was very wrong.

  Had I done something that made people resent me?

  “So where is everybody?” I asked a little nervously.

  Alexandra lifted her head and stared at me.

  “I thought you of all people would know,” she said.