The Exquisite and Immaculate Grace of Carmen Espinoza (23 page)

“Goodbye,” I said. “Good luck.”

Ray came and stood beside me and we both watched in silence until the creature became nothing more than a black spot on the horizon.

When Ray turned to head back inside the castle, I reached out suddenly and took hold of his arm.
 

His whole body froze beneath my touch.
 

“Who do you think he will become?” I asked.

Ray shook his head gently, “I don’t know. Whomever he chooses to be I suppose.”

I moved closer to him until I was standing in front of him. His eyes held to the ground between us. Slowly, I raised my hand until it touched his chin, a silent request for him to look at me, to please, try and remember who I had been to him.

“I haven’t forgotten.”

“Then why?” I began and stopped. I took a deep breath. “Will you ever feel for me what you did? I could bear spending eternity here if I knew you would be beside me.”

His head shook slowly and I felt my heart sink at the sight of it. “I could never feel what I felt.”

My hand dropped from his face.

He looked at me from the tops of his eyes. “Because it wasn’t enough,” he continued. “When I look at you…” a sob escaped his throat and cut his words. He swallowed hard and tears spilled from his eyes. “When I look at you, it’s like looking into the heart of God. There is so much love radiating off of you…it is so beautiful…it hurts.”
 

I took his face into my hands and his sobs grew harder. “I need you,” I whispered. “I need you beside me, not beneath me.”

For a moment, he didn’t move as my words made there way into his heart. Then, he nodded his head and stood up straight. When he looked at me, he looked directly into my eyes even though I could see it was a struggle for him. “What should I call you?”

“Call me Carmen. Always Carmen, so I may never forget.”
   

I looked up into the sky and felt the rain on my face. Every drop had the power to heal, to clean, to wash away their burdens—if they let it. I turned my face towards the sheer cliff of suffering and waited to see the reactions, the effect. Waited to see if the Epiphany pool I had placed in the sky above them to rain down on their torment could help them.
 

Some began to curse louder.

Some wept.

My father, my stepfather, turned his eye up towards the shower and his lips whispered a silent prayer, “Thank you,” before he began to sob. The rain spilled over his face and fingers, large drops spread over his forehead and, mixed with his tears, ran down his cheeks.
 

It would take a long time, but I could see that, for some of them, for the ones who wanted it, the molecules of rock had started to wash away.
 

I stepped into his line of sight so that he could see me, his eye fixed on me in fear.

“It’s you,” his voice trembled.

“Yes,” I nodded.

“Just like my dream,” he cried. “You’ve come just like…just like I saw.”

I smiled even though I knew my smile never brought comfort to the souls that saw it. I was a divine and holy terror to them, closer to God than human. I frightened them even though I worked only to help them.

His eye looked away, “What will happen to me now?” he whispered.

“The water, it will help you see. Help you heal…if you let it.”

“Will I ever be free?” he cried.

“It is already happening.”

He wept and I watched for a moment more before I turned and left. He would, one day, travel back to The Beyond with Daniel.

Later, I asked Ray, “Will he ever see him again?”

“If they both choose to, yes.”

I nodded my head at this, the thought brought me comfort.

I had the power to shape The Between the way I saw fit, and so I opened up the underground ocean of the Epiphany Pool into every offense.
 

“It was once this way,” Ray said, smiling at the changes I continued to make. “It was once a beautiful place where souls came to heal.”

I had made the sky change from its chaos of inky black and gray, to a swirling melt of vibrant blues, violets, pinks, and orange. It now looked like a welcoming dream instead of the broken nightmare it had been. The trees, plants, and shrubs changed from the speckled rust they had been when I first arrived, into a dreamy pastel palette. Flowers actually began to bloom and the pups where no longer the only strange animals to inhabit the world.
   

Among the whispery white and yellow clouds above our heads and on the paths beneath us, guides and lost souls again filled The Between. They searched for answers to past lives and moved forward into the promises of doing better in the next one. As the epiphany pools flooded into the offenses, suddenly more and more souls were finding their way out and they arrived, one after the other, on the backs of the pups to make their accounts in the book before leaving for The Beyond.

Faints still swam, listless and lost, but as the older ones completed their decline into nothing, less and less formed to take their place.

So much had changed, but there was one more thing—and I didn’t know if even I had the power to change it.
 

My feet stood at the edge of the swirling pool. For quite some time, the epiphany pool I’d placed in the sky had been raining down on the eternally damned and my step-father was one of the souls nearly freed from his rocky prison.

There was one more soul who still haunted me—my mother.
 

Once again, I looked around at the strange landscape surrounding the suicide pool. The barren and rocky desert was deep inside the Rage offense. The large round boulders marking the boundary clearly defined this place as different from the rest of The Between—and yet, still inside of it.

I didn’t know why.
 

My eyes tracked the fluid and murky faces of the souls swimming in their own despair. Their eyes rolled in their ghostly faces, lost and confused—as if they couldn’t
 
figure out what had happened to them. Their mouths yawned, in a desperate cry.
 

What has happened to me?

I closed my eyes and considered this offense. This rage turned in. Rage aimed at the self. That was why this pool was here. These people had used angry hands, not against each other like the rest of the souls struggling in their constant angry battles—but against themselves, and their souls were confused by this.
 

They swam in the salty, torpid waters of their own despair.

I stared into the depths of them and I felt lost myself. Even with all the power now at my disposal, I didn’t know how to reach those souls that dwelled in that deep, dark place. I had no idea how to help them.

“Mama,” I whispered. “Can you hear me?”

For awhile, the faces before me only continued to undulate in their incessant swirl of agony and I didn’t see her’s among them. I began to think that maybe it was too late. Maybe my mother was too far gone to even try to save from this place. The thought clutched at my throat like icy fingers, “Please Mama,” I breathed.
 

I scanned the waters, hoping for some sign of recognition. Minutes ticked and my finger nails dug deeper and deeper into the palms of my hands, but the pain it caused was the only tangible feeling keeping my fear and sorrow in check.

When I still didn’t see any sign of her, a cry rose up from my throat and I sat, desperate with regret, at the side of the pool.

The strange faces stared back at me with their question mark expressions, shifting and changing, until I couldn’t bear to look at their misery any longer. I hadn’t been able to help my mother—and I couldn’t help any of these poor souls either. I closed my eyes and laid down on the hard, rocky ground.

“I’m sorry mama.” My hand held the jagged edge of the pool, I could feel the tepid water against my fingers. “I’m sorry for everything.”

I laid there a long time, thinking of her, her life. Still wishing, even now, to be near her.
 

A sensation, like a feather, brushed across my wet fingers. One of the lost souls in the pool most likely, I thought. Then it happened again. I was starting to sit up to see what was happening when I felt something else, something much stronger than a feather—it was a hand sliding into mine.
 

At the edge of the pool, a woman’s fingers pressed between mine until our hands were holding tight to each other. I pulled myself to the edge and watched, amazed, at the sight of my mother as her hair and head broke the surface of the pool.
 

Water streamed from her head and face, “Carmen?” she asked.

“Mama?” I cried.
 

She smiled at me, big and beautiful, my mother looked just like the picture from before Daniel died. She let go of my hand and reached for my face with both her hands. “Look at you,” she said as her eyes inspected every inch of my face. “What has happened?”

“I did it, mama. I saved him. Daniel is safe,” I cried.
 

She smiled and her hand stroked my cheek in a way I had never experienced in life. “I knew you could do it,” she said. “But what has happened?” she searched my eyes. “You look so different.”

I nodded my head, “I traded my soul for his,” I whispered. “I am The Great Balancer now.”
 

Her smile evaporated.
 

Now it was my turn to touch her face. “I chose it.”

“No,” she said. “Not that. It’s too much to—”

“It is done mama. There is no undoing it.” I took a breath and sat up straighter. “And now, now it is time for us to balance you.” I stood and my mother’s eyes looked up at me, taking in my full height and grandeur for the first time. I reached out my hand for her, “Come with me.”

She smiled at me, but did not take my hand. I watched, amazed, as she lifted her arms from her sides and began to rise out of the waters. Rivulets streamed from her long black hair and the tips of her fingers. I wasn’t the only one who had changed, my mother looked twenty years younger and was cloaked in a shimmering black gown that clung to her body.
 

She was stunning.
 

“You’re not the only one who has made a choice,” she explained.
 

“You’re a guide,” I suddenly realized.

“Yes,” she smiled. “Not for one soul, but for the many who end up trapped in here,” she opened her palms to the water below her. “I lead as many as I can though the ocean beneath the ground to the Epiphany Pool on the other side.”

I remembered, I had swam from that pool to this one just before I died.
 

She lowered herself and sat next to me, her legs and dress remained in the water up to her knees. Her hand reached for mine and she stared into my eyes.
 

I didn’t know what to say. “This is what you want?”

She smiled and nodded her head. “At first, I wasn’t sure what was happening to me. After I saw you that first time, I found the way to the Epiphany Pool myself. Then I led one soul there, and another, then more. I don’t know why I kept going back, kept helping—it is amazing to watch each one wake up to the understanding of their past life. Still, I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue.” Her hand reached up and cupped my face and I felt her thumb brush across my cheek. “But now I know that you will be here as well,” she smiled. “I am certain that there is no place I would rather be than right here with you.” She let go of my face and looked into my eyes. “We have so much of our last life to make up.”

When she pulled me into her arms, I rested my head on her shoulder. “I do so love you Carmen.”

I closed my eyes and held her tight, “I love you too, mama.”
 

Later, back at the castle with Ray, we stood together and stared out over the horizon of The Between. “You are amazing,” Ray whispered into my ear. He stood behind me, his chest pressed against my back as his arms snaked around my waist.
 

I smiled, “You think so?” My voice was still deep, powerful, and thundered up and out of me. But Ray seemed to have gotten used it, even if I hadn’t.
 

“Yes,” he turned me to face him. “Although I’ve always known how amazing you are,” his hands reached up and created a frame around my electric hair. “Even before your divine makeover.”

I laughed and shoved him gently, “Shut up.”

His mouth curled into smirk, “As you wish my grace.” He leaned forward, took my face in his hands, and pressed his lips to mine.
 

“I told you not to call me that,” I said, my lips brushing his before surrendering again to his kiss.

He smiled, pulled me closer into his arms, and kissed me deeper. “As you wish…my Carmen.”
 

About Rebecca Taylor:

Rebecca Taylor is a young adult author living in Colorado with her husband and two children.
 

You can find more information about her and her work at:

Web:
www.rebeccataylorbooks.com

Blog:
www.rebeccataylorbooks.blogspot.com