Beyond (Afterlife book 1) (13 page)

“
Who’s there?” I asked and got
out of bed.

As I approached the figure I realized it
was Jackline.

“
Bad dream?” she asked
me.

I nodded and came closer.

“
Yeah, me too,” she said and
turned her head away from me.

“
Are you having dreams
too? I thought I was the only one. I thought most spirits didn’t
dream.”

She lifted her shoulders. “Well I don’t
know about others, but I sure do dream.”

“
Maybe it’s because we’re still
new or something.”

“
Maybe we just have a lot on our
minds,” Jackline said.

I looked at her. “So what’s on yours?” I
asked.

She shook her head and turned to look out
the window. A bright moon lit up her face.

“
You know… stuff,” she
answered.

“
Yeah, I know. Me too. I
keep dreaming about my parents. That they are looking for me and
that they don’t know I am dead. But I can’t see their faces and I
don’t know where they are. I can’t even go look for them when I
don’t know what they look like, and I am scared that I will lose
all my memory of them. I know I get to visit them later on, when
our training is done here, but that might be a very long time for
them to wait.”

“
Yeah, probably, but don’t
forget that time goes faster back on earth than it does
here.”

“
Yeah, I know. It is hard to
know that they might be searching for me. I really want to find
them and let them know that I am fine, but all I remember is that I
am an American girl, and that is a very big country to go look for
two people.”

Jackline
nodded. “It sure
is.”

I looked at her again. She had such a great
sadness to her.

“
Say, do you know how you
died?”

“
Sure. I was shot. First
some guy raped me for a couple of hours and then he shot
me.”

I didn’t know what to say. I just stared
at her. ”Wow,” I said. ”That’s a horrible story.”

She turned her head and looked at me. Then
she smiled for the first time since I met her. A line of pearly
white teeth.

“
Are you kidding me? It is
the best thing that ever happened to me. My life on earth was
miserable.”

I was a little speechless. I hadn’t
thought about that. “You were a child soldier?”

“
That’s right.” Jackline’s eyes
turned hard as stone.

“
How did you become a
soldier?”

She sighed. “Do you really want to know
that?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

“
I was kidnapped. It was
back home in Uganda. My sister and I had left our hut to walk down
to the well in our village to get water for our grandmother. She
was old and sick. We had made the trip hundreds of times, but this
day we never came back. After that day nothing was ever the same. I
was never the same again.”

“
What happened?” I
asked.

“
As I was drawing the
water I heard a lot of noise coming from the road and women and
children were running around screaming. I knew we had no chance of
getting away in time and seconds later a truck came by and grabbed
all the children by the well. Including me and my
sister.”

“
Then what happened to
you?”

“
They raped us and told us
they owned us now. That we had to work for them. We had to do as we
were told or they would kill us. They gave us weapons and told us
we had to shoot children in the villages we came to. So we
did.”

I felt a heaviness in my heart.

“
You … shot
children?”

Jackline
nodded. Her eyes were cold and
hard. She didn’t say anything. She just nodded.

“
That must have been so
tough. Having to do that, I mean.”

“
It was them or
us.”

“
What happened to your
sister?”

Jackline
froze.

“
She is already in
Heaven.”

“
So she died sooner than
you?”

I was sure I heard Jackline sniff while
she nodded.

“
Then you will get to see
her again soon,” I tried to encourage her.

“
Yeah, well. I just hope …
you know … that she has forgiven me.”

“
For what?”

“
For … killing her … I
shot her. Three days after we arrived to the camp where the army
trained us. The leader gave us both a weapon and told us to shoot
at one another. They wanted to teach us how to kill, they said.
They wanted the strongest to survive. If a person could kill her
own sister she could kill anyone. It was either me or
her.”

Jackline
bowed her head and I saw tears
roll down her cheeks.

“
But I don’t understand
why I wasn’t send directly to Hell, where I belong,” she said
through her tears.

I wanted to hug her but something inside of
me was frozen. I was afraid, I think. Instead I grabbed her hand
and held on to it.

“
Probably because you
don’t belong there,” I said. “I am sure your sister is looking
forward to see you.”

Jackline
looked at me and wiped away her
tears. “You think?”

I nodded reassuringly. “I am certain.
Remember, she was the one who got out of there. She never had to
kill children or be raped again. She got to go here and then into
Heaven.”

Jackline
was sobbing but seemed a little
relieved.

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

Chapter
14

We both went back to bed and
slept until the next morning. I had no more bad dreams after that
but I wonder
ed 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 w
hat 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.