Afterlife: Caitlyn: Sacred Calling (part 2)

[k_a_webb]

This entry is part 27 of 28 in the Afterlife collection

Part 1

This entry is part 27 of 28 in the Afterlife collection

“Why do you wait?” Caitlyn asked, finally finding the hundreds of files on people with the surname Hardy.

“It’s easier that way. We don’t often come down to the afterlife, it causes too much upheaval for the spirits and some of them can get a little clingy, so it’s better for you to come to us. To be able to come to the angelic realms you have to know that we exist. Hence the phone calls.”

Caitlyn bit on her lip as she finally got to the J. Hardys and wished that there was an easier system for finding files. “I don’t know that you exist though. You’re on the other end of the phone, so you could just be someone pretending to be the angel Uriel. Unless there is some way you can prove your identity through the phone I think I’m going to stick to be slightly skeptical about angels.”

Uriel was silent for a long time, so long that Caitlyn started to think he might have put the phone down on her, until he asked, “Is there a reason you’re skeptical?”

Caitlyn shrugged and then remember she was on the phone. “There no specific reason I’m skeptical. I never believed in the existence of angels when I was alive, probably because I never saw one, so until I do see one I think it’s going to be hard for me to accept that angels do exist.”

“Not everyone needs an angel, Caitlyn.” Uriel sighed. “Some spirits are better off just having their guides to help them, while there are those who probably wouldn’t get through another incarnation without our help. It’s something that you’ll learn in time because you will find spirits who need to be passed on to us.”

“Like Jane Hardy.”

“Poor woman.”

“Why do you say that?”

Caitlyn was still going through the files trying to find Jane Hardy’s file and knew that there would be at least six of them. It helped knowing that Elizabeth was the last person to have had the file last because her name would be on it until someone else picked it up to go through it.

“She’s had a few particularly difficult incarnations, so none of the guides have been able to convince her that she should incarnate again. That’s why she’s been passed on to me.”

“Is there any particular reason why you were chosen to look after Jane Hardy?”

“A spirit looking for redemption is always sent to me if they have trouble.”

Nodding, Caitlyn pulled out the file for Jane Hardy from the cabinet. “Last birth date for this spirit?” she asked.

“The twenty-sixth of February 1971.”

“I have the file right here. How exactly am I meant to get it to you?”

There was a pop and suddenly a man with wings appeared on the other side of the desk, still holding the receiver in his head. “Oops,” he said, smiling.

Caitlyn stared at him for a moment. It was all she could do. Talking to an angel on the phone was entirely different to having one standing right in front of her. He was actually kind of good looking, although she wasn’t sure she should be thinking that about an angel. The red eyes were kind of weird, but logical considering the shimmering scarlet hair and wings.

Finally she said, still speaking into the phone, “I thought you visited rarely.”

As Uriel made his receiver disappear she put hers down, shaking her head at herself. “We walk through rarely. They’re always carefully planned. Spirit guides are a different type of spirit entirely.” He held his hand out. “It’s very nice to meet you, Caitlyn.”

His hand was warm when she took it. Instead of shaking it as she had half expected him to do he lifted it to his lips and kissed it. They were just as warm as his hand. Raising an eyebrow, Caitlyn held the file out to him.

“Thank you, Caitlyn,” Uriel said, taking it. “To be honest I shouldn’t really have done this, but I wanted to be the first one to meet you.”

“Why?”

“New spirit guides are rare. I’m not exaggerating when I say that. A spirit takes a long time to get to the point when it can be a guide, so we have a new one maybe once every two or three centuries and I enjoy being able to greet the newbie first. It must be a couple of millennia since I last got to be the first to meet a newbie.”

“Okay…” Caitlyn tried to think of something she could say in reply, but it was hard to get her head around the idea that Uriel had been alive, if that was what an angel was, for so long. “Two millennia?”

Uriel nodded. “Two millennia really isn’t that long. We keep busy, but newbies are special. They never know what to say.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Are you alive?”

“It depends on your definition of alive. Are you alive?”

“I don’t know. I’m still trying to work out whether I can call myself alive or whether walking dead works better.”

“You think you’re a zombie?”

“How do you know about zombies?”

“I do read.” Uriel tutted. “Angels aren’t illiterate and you’ll find that we read a lot of Earth fiction. Humans have interesting minds.” He looked at Caitlyn. “We can also use computers, before you ask.”

“I suppose you have to do something with all that time.” She shrugged. “Anyway, I didn’t mean we’re zombies, although I guess we kind of are zombies. I mean we’re not alive and yet we’re still walking and taking.”

“And filing.” He smiled. “You’re not a zombie, Caitlyn. You’re just humans in a different stage of incarnation to the ones that are living on Earth. I’d call it living, but it’s just not living in a human suit.”

Caitlyn thought about what he said for a moment. “Why am I having a conversation with an angel about zombies?” she asked herself.

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

Comments

Feedback

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

No typos found.