Rayed upon Beatrice, from her fair face
Contented me with its reflected aspect
Conquering me with the radiance of a smile
She said to me, "Turn thee about and listen; Not in mine eyes alone is Paradise."
- Dante's Paradiso, Canto XVIII
He's young when he first catches her eye; no more than twenty, barely past childhood himself. He wears the uniform of an American soldier, the camouflage pattern stained a berry-red across the torso. The blood is not his, but belongs to a fallen comrade. Beau Andrews of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. He's only nineteen. His name and details come to her in a whisper, as if carried on a ghostly breeze. He is treasured by his mother and his sister. Predeceased by his father. The loss will be agony for the ones he leaves behind, but she is powerless to undo an ending this certain, this unambiguous. She has come for Beau.
But it's him -Timothy Bradford; her heart hums over his name like an old hymn- that she watches.
It is unusual for her to find a human noteworthy, but something about him attracts her attention at once. Perhaps it's his face. He's uncommonly beautiful, his skin smooth, his jawline sharp, eyes as blue as a cornflower blossom… but she has seen millions of humans to the other side, many of them just as pretty. It is something else, then, that holds her gaze, and after a moment she realizes it is his compassion. It is love. Violence has erupted around the pair, and yet the living man does not move for the sake of his own safety, remaining at his friend's side despite the growing danger.
"Stay with me, Andrews," Tim pleads as he shields the body of his companion from further harm. He needn't beg, as begging is useless. Beau is dead. She has already touched the wounded man's mouth. His final breath has flown into her palm, and from it she has already fashioned the gem that will allow him passage into eternity. It is small and round, no bigger than a marble, and shot through with streaks of blue. Blue, like Tim's eyes; it is also the color of regret. She is a little disturbed to see he carried this much of it, considering his age.
"Come to me," she commands.
Rising slowly, Beau glows as his essential self casts off its vessel. Like this, he appears to her more real than his body had been. The moment his soul has broken free from its flesh, she shuts the way to the natural world, and they are locked in the space between what was and what will be. It is here that he meets her, in the milliseconds between death and the afterlife.
"Beau Andrews," she says as the eyes of his spirit tremble beneath her stare.
"Where am I?" he asks.
It's the question she receives the most. She tells him, "You and I are in the midnatural."
"The midnatural?"
"It's the place between life and eternity. " She offers him her hand. "I'm Lucia. Or Lucy, if you prefer." She's always hated her given name, finding it too close for comfort to that of the most infamous fallen angel.
"Lucia?" There is noticeable awe in the way he says her name, and she perceives through the haze of the middle realm and into the natural that, beside the dogtags he wore on a chain, there is a Miraculous Medal around his neck. She knows the pendant well. It is fashioned in the likeness of the Virgin, and Lucy could recite from memory the words that surround her picture like a halo. So Beau was Catholic in his natural life, and the dawning of understanding on his face means he recognizes her name as Latin. "An angel of light?" he asks.
It pains her how hopeful humans can be.
"No," she tells him. "Not light. Death."
"You are dead, Armando. I hold your last breath in my hands." She presents him then with the gem in her palm. It is smaller than Beau's last breath had been, about the size of a pea, and it is as yellow as a goldfinch. Small, because the end had come upon him so very quickly that his last breath was rather short. Yellow, because he was overwhelmed with fear in his final millisecond of earthly existence, though she can see by its pattern that the fear is not for himself. It is for the men who serve under him. "When I hand you this, it will open the door."
"Door to what?"
"To what's next."
"Heaven?"
Another frequent question, but this is harder to answer. Every soul she meets has certain expectations of the afterlife, and it is nearly impossible to unravel all of their preconceived notions in only the minute or so she spends with them. "In a sense. It's where all life comes from, and what all life returns to."
"So much for 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust'."
She allows herself a smirk at his scoffing before correcting him gently. "That is true of the natural world, Armando, but you have never been simply natural. You were always a soul. You only possessed a body for a little while. Open your hand."
He does as she commands, and she puts the jewel into the well of his palm. The second the last breath is in his grasp, the door to eternity opens. It appears like a portal of light.
"What's that?" Armando asks, taking a hesitant step back.
"It's the doorway."
"To heaven?"
"It doesn't really have a name." Not one a human would recognize, anyway. It is sentient and a host of celestial beings are in its employ, but a name has not been given, nor was one needed. Still, to satisfy his curiosity, she reveals, "Some of us call it the everglow."
As she speaks, another angel steps out of the light. She recognizes Zoe immediately, and while Armando had reacted to Lucy with awe, his response to the archangel is a mixture of wonder and fear. Both reactions are correct. Zoe is robed in a silver shimmer made from the dust of a thousand long-dead galaxies. Around her shoulders she wears the final breaths of every soul that has ever passed through the portal; it drapes like a shawl, but trails out behind her like the train of a gown. The material twinkles like stars, pulsates like heartbeats.
There are many angels of death. Lucy is but one of a lowly rank that numbers in the thousands, but there is only one Zoe. She has no mythical equivalent in any of the man-made religions, but the closest might have been the Greeks with their ferryman Charon. On that point Zoe had taken much offense. She is much prettier than the skeletal Charon, for one thing.
Also -and this she likes to relay on occasion, following it with a wry chuckle- she "wouldn't be caught dead" in a boat.
"Armando Diaz," she says, and every question the man possesses leaves his mind as he beholds her. "Eternity awaits." Zoe motions to the light. "After you."
He walks toward the portal, and she holds out her hand for the gem. He gives it up easily and without another word. As he walks into the everglow, Zoe holds the gem against the hem of her shawl. It is absorbed into the fold, the specks of yellow fading as it becomes an iridescent white, uniform with all the others.
"Battle casualty?" Zoe asks Lucy.
She nods. "Another war."
A saddened sigh as the archangel shakes her head. "It's a shame," she says before turning back towards the light. "Take care, Luce."
The portal closes behind her, and Lucy returns to the natural realm, the last of the midnatural is still fading from sight just as a familiar face comes into view.
It had been a grenade that had ended Armando's life; a vicious device that tore him apart as handily as a hungry lion. Tim is the one who finds the remains of his sergeant, and he ages a year in an instant. She knows it is an image that will haunt his dreams for years to come. There is no begging this time, no pleading for him to stay. Armando Diaz was beyond hope, and there is nothing for Tim to do but mourn, however briefly the battleground allows for it.
It is only a second that he permits himself to grieve, but while he does, she picks out the truth of him as easily as if she were eavesdropping. He is the son of a cruel father who left when he was a teenager. His mother is kind and gentle. He is the apple of two younger sisters' eyes. He has a girl back home, but suspects she is unfaithful (he is correct). There is more to divine, but she hasn't the time, and neither does he. His vigil is over, and he takes the dogtags off the Sergeant's body before returning to his feet.
After the second time she encounters him, Tim is never far from her thoughts.
Lucy does not seek him out but she is, unfortunately, drawn to him for a third time. He returns home from war and enrolls in his city's police academy. He excels, but towards the end of his training begins to falter. His mother is very ill. The cancer is terminal. A week before he graduates the academy, he and his sisters receive a call from her hospice house. Their mother is in her last hours. They should come say goodbye.
The Bradford matriarch is quickly surrounded by her children, but she does not wake even once for their final visit. Her skin is pale and cold, her eyes closed. The children -grown now, but her children still- weep silently at her bedside, and a murmured prayer reveals the fear surrounding her passing. Even as adults, they still need their mother.
Never, in more than a millennia of guiding, has Lucy ever felt the desire to intervene. This time, she does.
She enters the midnatural realm and calls for Zoe. The portal to the afterlife opens, and she walks out, the smirk on her face enhancing her loveliness.
"No need to shout, Lucy. I'm always close by," the other angel chuckles. "What do you need?"
She is stoic, almost stolid in her request. "The woman I'm guiding today. I want to borrow time for her."
Zoe's good humor evaporates. She is stern as she warns, "Borrowing breath is a serious request. How long does she have?"
"Without intervention? Hours."
"Is she in pain?"
From what Lucy understands of cancer, absolutely. "I believe they have smoothed the road for her," -it is a phrase she heard a nurse utter as they started Tim's mother on a drug called morphine- "but yes. There is pain."
"If her passing is certain and she is in pain, what would extending her life achieve?"
Lucy thinks of Tim, of his sisters. "Her children need her. Please, Zoe. I've never asked before."
Zoe eyes her, but relents after a moment's pause. She tears a fistful of fabric off of her shawl. The gap left is instantly filled in by the fabric that remains, and into Lucy's hand she places the fistful of last breaths. Now, it is time she can lend to the mother. "This is the most I can give. It will not take away her disease, but it will give her more time. Do not give her all of it or you'll extend her suffering more than you intend to. Appear to her and make an offer. Keep in mind she might say no."
For her sake -and Tim's- Lucy hopes she doesn't. She leaves the midnatural and returns to the hospital room. It is as she left it, with the three Bradford children holding vigil around their mother's bed.
She places her hand on the woman's forehead, and everything she needs to know comes to light. Bending close to her ear, she whispers, "Faye Bradford, has your time come?"
Faye's eyes remain closed, but her spirit responds. "Yes. I have peace."
"I can offer you more."
"I don't want it," she replies, then says again, "I have peace."
Lucy turns the borrowed time over in her hands. She cannot force a soul to stay if they are ready, but her gaze lands on the faces of the two young women, then on Tim's own face, streaked with tears that he has not brushed away. She can alleviate their pain by lengthening her life, but the relief will be temporary. She weighs the fabric in her palm; a corner piece will only buy their mother another few weeks, a month at most, but they will soon find themselves in the exact same position. Waiting for her passing. Mourning her loss.
She looks at the three remaining Bradfords. "I'm sorry." The apology leaves her lips in a whisper, and although it is sincerely meant, she knows they cannot hear her as she places her hand over Faye's mouth. From her last breath she fashions the stone she will give to Zoe. It is small, the size of a pearl, and a deep mossy green like the floor of a forest. It is the color of peace.
She leads Faye to the everglow, feeling small beneath Zoe's knowing gaze as she welcomes the woman in, then holds out the time she was lent.
"She was ready," is all the explanation she offers, but Zoe does not take the fabric back.
"Hold on to it for now. You may need it in the future. But Lucy," again, her tone is a warning, "use great discretion when extending a life." Then she turns towards the portal and closes the way.
The sight of Tim comforting his sisters rocks her to her very core. Even in the throes of his own grief, he remains a pillar of strength for them, wiping away their tears and consoling them as they weep over their mother.
But still no one attends to him. No one consoles him. No one wipes his tears. She turns away from the scene, feeling dismayed for a reason she cannot pinpoint.
Tim marries. The woman his heart wants is beautiful, but troubled, and falls into danger within only a few years of their vows. When she is pulled to the home the pair share, Lucy feels disquieted and fearful before she finds Isabel -his wife- convulsing on the floor, her lips blue.
She thinks of the ribbon of borrowed breath she's been saving, but knows as she kneels beside her that it is already too late. Lucy has not thought of using it since Faye, but she had had hours. Her death was certain, but the timing was in flux. Isabel is moments away, and her chest heaves as she gasps for air. The final moment is upon her, and there is nothing for Lucy to do but take her. Isabel's last breath hits her palm in a cold rush. When she squeezes, it becomes a stone. The pebble is an alarming crimson color, redder than a ruby, and she can't begin to guess what it means.
The spirit that stands before her a moment later is nothing like the woman she found on the floor. Isabel knows at once what has happened, and resigns herself to her fate.
"I'm dead, aren't I?"
"Yes." There is no fear in her countenance at this confirmation; instead, Isabel appears almost relieved. It infuriates Lucy, and she speaks more harshly than she ever has to a mortal. "The man who loves you will be heartbroken when he comes home. Did you hate your life so much that you're glad it's over?" Isabel says nothing in response, and after a moment Lucy offers her the stone. "It is how you earn your way into the afterlife," she explains shortly.
Isabel takes the stone. The portal appears. A moment later, Zoe walks out.
"Isabel Bradford, come with me."
She hesitates. "Is it hell?"
At her question, the archangel looks disturbed. "Not at all."
"I know I don't deserve heaven."
"Very few humans get what they deserve. Your stone, please." Isabel hands her the ruby, and instantly Zoe's demeanor changes. She no longer chastens, her whole face softening as she examines the last breath before holding it to the hem. As it absorbs into the shawl, she extends her arm to Isabel. "You will be comforted here. I promise."
Only when she is through does Lucy speak again. "I've never seen a last breath so red," she reveals.
"I have," Zoe answers. "It's pain."
Lucy does not know why she stays; she only knows she cannot possibly leave. She is there when Tim returns home, watches over his shoulder as he finds his wife unconscious. Seeing him bear witness to other deaths has not prepared her for the surge of devastation as he finds Isabel's lifeless body, calls emergency services, and tries in vain to revive her. His attempts last only a minute or two, and then he gives up. His tears are numerous, his sobs guttural. The ambulance arrives before long, and the medics forgo a gurney for a body bag.
"Please be careful with her," he calls weakly after the paramedics, and then he is alone.
All the while Lucy keeps watch, a silent observer to his grief. He does not contact either of his sisters for help, nor any of his friends, rising only to move from the living room floor to the couch. He lays down and trains his eyes towards the ceiling, gaze upwards and vacant for hours. Although his face looks emotionless and still, she sees tears rolling from out of his eyes, and she is so moved by pity and care for the man she's watched for years that she does something a little reckless.
She's never touched someone in the natural realm before; at least, never without the purpose of bringing them to the afterlife, and consequently does not know what to expect when her fingers caress his forehead. She's certainly not expecting his skin to be so warm, nor does she expect his eyes to slip closed as he sighs in relief. She knows he can't sense her -not in the usual way of human sensing- and yet she is sure her presence gives him something like relief. She continues to stroke his skin, and he soon falls asleep. It is then that she allows herself to perform a kindness she'd yet to see anyone give him.
She wipes his tears, catching each beneath her fingertips.
"I'm so sorry, Tim," she whispers, an echo of the apology she'd said over his mother's body. He stirs in his sleep, and she feels certain that, if not heard, her remorse is at least understood on some unconscious level. Despite her apology, she does not feel absolved; she regrets the suffering each loss brings him and, as he rests, thinks futilely on how she wishes she could undo every death for his sake.