His eyes lit up. “What?”
“Nothing, it just waved.”
Snorting, he shook his head.
“Well, whaddya expect? The only jokes I know are from popsicle sticks.”
He clung to me, and I held him tight, reveling in the feel of all things safe and good wrapped up in his tanned arms.
“What are you thinking about?” Even the sound of his voice soothed me, like gentle, peaceful waves rolling into the shore at sunrise.
I shifted uncomfortably in the thinly padded seat and lifted my hands, running them through his silky hair, then letting the strands fall to his shoulders. “I’m just thinking how this place used to be my safe haven and now it just feels like, I dunno, a black hole sucking away my future. We don’t have a future anymore.”
For the past year, Nate and I had been in a state of Limbo, completing a list of tasks Dr. Judy suggested so that we could learn our life—er, death lessons—and find true happiness again before entering Heaven. Apparently, I accidentally killed myself when I took a bottle of pain pills while feeling guilty about Conner, my best friend, who died in front of my eyes. I was unable to save him and blamed myself for his death.
Nate unintentionally killed himself while drag racing another kid from his school at the end of his junior year, all because he was upset about having to move to Grand Haven, my hometown. He found out today the other kid died, too.
After discovering
we were dead
and all this other stuff, entering Heaven seemed selfish when we left a wave of destruction here on Earth. Both of us had just witnessed, for the first time, our families grieving for us because of our stupid choices. Becoming spirit guides and helping others with unfinished business seemed fitting considering our circumstances.
Nate placed a finger under my chin and tilted my mouth to his. His lips were warm and soft. Usually, I wasn’t a big fan of PDA, but we remained invisible to the ‘living’ people in the waiting room. Being in spirit form had its advantages.
“Olga Gay Worontzoff,” he whispered after slowly breaking away from our kiss.
The worst thing about my life when I was alive, up until Conner’s death, was my horrible name—named after my grandmothers, of course.
“As long as we’re together, we’ll always have a future.” Nate’s words scorched my ears, warmth spreading through my insides.
I sat up straighter and placed my hands on his broad shoulders, giving them a squeeze. “You’re right. This is still just so hard to take in. I like my structure, ya know? And suddenly, my life has entered this frenetic pace where I don’t even understand what’s happening or—”
Nate’s watch beeped, making me jump. We could roam Earth—the real one, not the fake one we’d been living on during our alternative timeline for the past year—one last time until midnight. At first, we just wanted to visit our families and friends. But not being able to interact with them was too depressing, so we spent most of our hours walking around the town we loved so much. I felt caught in some twisted version of Cinderella. At the stroke of the clock, my remarkable fortune would return once again to unfortunate circumstances. I mentally kicked myself. I should’ve known the past year was too good to be true.
Dr. Judy opened the door to her office. “Oh good, you’re here.” She seemed surprised, like we had a choice in the matter. “Are you ready to go?”
I slid my hand down to Nate’s and held it as we stood together.
“No,” Nate answered.
“You can’t stay here.” Dr. Judy eyed us cautiously.
Nate nodded his head. “We know, but we hoped to speak to you about becoming spirit guides.”
She frowned at us for a moment. “Well then, come on in.”
My eyes wandered to the waiting room, then to Dr. Judy, who followed my questioning gaze.
“Oh, I get to pick when they can and can’t see me. One of the perks of the job.”
She ushered us in and closed the door. The room still came equipped with the furnishings I’d grown accustomed to: two wicker cushioned seats, a desk and a leather chair, and a recliner. I didn’t know why, but I expected her office to look different now.
As usual, she took a seat behind her desk in the middle of the room, and Nate and I sat in the two chairs in front of her. “First, do you understand what you’re saying? What you’re signing up for?”
“Sure,” I said. “Spirit guides… we help people, or spirits, or whatever. We nudge them in the right direction, like you did with us. Only, we can’t tell them they’re dead. We have to
trick
them, let them believe they survived their accident and are still among the living.” Okay, I might’ve delivered my answer with just a tad bit of resentment.
Dr. Judy gave her head a small shake, and I didn’t blame her. Even to myself I sounded too immature for this job.
“It’s so much more than that. Let’s start out with a few things you need to know.” She folded her hands on top of the mahogany surface.
Her tone sounded world-weary with a touch of skepticism. I wondered if this was how I’d sound after dealing with ghosts caught in the in-between for a few years. Even if I did get sick of my new profession, it’s not like I could tell my boss to take this job and shove it.
Dr. Judy sighed loudly, drawing me away from my thoughts. “This is no cake walk. Spirit guides, unlike angels, do not possess any special powers. We answer to the angels, and they in turn answer to God.”
“So you think we’re not… capable?” I chose my words carefully, because I didn’t want to hurt Nate’s feelings. He’d already been hurt enough today.
Dr. Judy hung back in her leather chair and gave an exasperated sigh. “I didn’t say that. In fact, I think you’re more than capable, despite your young age. I was very impressed with how you progressed in Limbo, as was my boss. So I do think I could pull some strings with my rank and get you an assignment even though you are teenagers. But first, I want you to understand what you’re signing up for. A spirit guide, unlike an angel, was once a human being, like me and like the pair of you, if you become guides. They lived their life, performed their tasks and died, then crossed over to the other side, but not into Heaven. We’re part of the Underworld, a region that is beneath the surface of the world. It’s where departed souls go who aren’t allowed in Heaven. We’re connected to the Heavens and the Earth, but we have four distinct regions down here.”
Four?
She’d only mentioned Limbo and Hell to us at our meeting earlier today. My creeped-out level raised a few notches. “So we’re not in Hell, but we’re not far from it?”
She held up her slender hands. “Relax. Yes, the Hell of the Damned is one of the regions, but you’re not in danger of being sent there. Well, not right now anyway. Hell is in the deepest part of the Earth, existing solely as a state of torture. The chance for redemption there is lost. The other three parts of the Underworld are intermediate states. Right above Hell is Purgatory.”
Nate peeked at me from the corner of his eye. “But you said we’re not there either.”
Dr. Judy shook her head, her wavy butterscotch hair slipping over her shoulders. I’d always admired her hair. Even though she wasn’t an angel, she sure looked like one. My appearance was far from that description. With my long red crazy curls and fair skin, I looked like the vampire chicks that were all the rage these days.
“No, you’re not,” Dr. Judy answered in her sweet voice. “Purgatory is like a waiting room for Heaven. There are good souls in there, but they weren’t Heaven-ready for various reasons, but they also didn’t have any unfinished business. Neither do the souls from Juvie.”
I put my elbows on my wobbly knees and dropped my head in my hands. “Say what?”
“Juvie is also for souls who aren’t eligible for entry into Heaven yet, but not because of their choices, but rather for lack of choice. Unclean souls of teenagers are there.”
Dr. Judy waited patiently as we tried to digest all this.
I felt like I was drowning. Is that where Conner was? He’d been my best friend since kindergarten; if he happened to get some God into his life during the twelve years I knew him, I would’ve known. We told each other everything and were hardly ever apart until high school when his girlfriends began to steal away his time from me. But to my knowledge, he was sort of an agnostic. He took a very scientific approach to the world. Whenever I told him God loved him and had a plan for his life he’d say, “Prove it.” Likewise, when his band mate Kyle argued with me that there was no God; Conner would also respond with, “Prove it.”
And if I was honest with myself, my motives for wanting this job weren’t as pure as Nate’s. I couldn’t shake the feeling Conner needed my help.
“So Olga and I didn’t go to Juvie either because we believed in God.”
“Correct.”
I exhaled with relief, glad Nate still had the presence of mind to ask more questions. To be honest, Nate and I hadn’t talked much about God this past year. Not that I was surprised he believed in God, because we did talk a lot about having
faith
that things would work out in life. Plus, he’d attended church with his parents every week just like I went to Catholic mass with mine. In retrospect, I didn’t have to question him at all about having a spiritual life because I just
knew
from the way he acted… unlike some people in my life. Like Tammy.
Tammy.
I hoped becoming a spirit guide meant I could go visit my friends sometimes.
But first, I needed some more questions answered. “Okay, we’re not in Juvie. But you did state at our meeting this morning that we’ve been in a state of Limbo for the past year. What does that mean, exactly?”
As I looked up, Dr. Judy fixed her gaze on me. “That’s right. You’re in the realm closest to Earth, called Limbo—a place of alternative timelines mimicking a person’s experiences on Earth. This place is for souls who need to go through the after-death purification process, for those who accepted God into their lives and were sealed for the day of redemption, but then died while backsliding, or falling into sin, and therefore, they could not ask for God’s forgiveness and receive His grace.”
Her explanation made sense. I committed suicide, albeit not intentionally, and Nate decided to drag race when he was upset. We definitely didn’t have that whole dying with grace thing down. Still, I wasn’t happy about being tricked with the alternative timeline thing. It would’ve been nice to receive this information a year earlier, even if Dr. Judy claimed we were both too depressed to hear the truth back then.
“So,” Dr. Judy continued. “Spirit guides like me help people in Limbo find their joy, peace, and grace again. Then they are free to move on to Heaven. There are very few cases in which people actually choose to stay here.”
I exhaled. “But you stayed here, right?”
Dr. Judy’s mouth dropped open, then closed, and we all sat silently for a few seconds. “More like sentenced. Limbo or Purgatory wasn’t a choice for me, so the angels told me I could become a spirit guide to avoid Hell.”
The hairs on my arms stood up. Hearing about this type of stuff in Sunday school class was one thing; it was another thing to find yourself living it, so to speak. “Do you mean you were told the
truth
from the start? That’s not fair at all!”
“Life isn’t fair, Olga. Build a bridge and get over it.”
My posture stiffened at her sudden coldness.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you. It just gets monotonous explaining these things day in, day out. But I know you still have a lot of questions, so go ahead. I’ll try to be patient.”
I cleared my throat. “So, the souls in Limbo are the only ones eligible to enter Heaven now?” I asked, still trying to comprehend all of this. “Well, I mean, as soon as their purification process is done?”
Dr. Judy rubbed her tiny forehead. “Yes, and as spirit guides we continue to learn and spiritually advance while helping others learn the life lessons they never had a chance to learn while living. Since we were once human ourselves, we are well aware of the problems they’re facing. We were concerned with similar matters not so long ago. ”
She had that faraway look in her dark green eyes, and I wondered what she was remembering, if something haunted her like Conner’s memory haunted me. The wrinkles around her mouth were set deeper than I remembered.
Nate grabbed my hand. I looked down and noticed his knuckles were white despite his tan. To know he was scared of something for once felt oddly comforting. “Once we receive our assignments, how will we know what to do?”
A smile stretched across Dr. Judy’s face. “Prayer. It plays an important part in the life of a spiritual guide, for more than one reason. You should know that since we’re in the Underworld, there are even more demons and temptations here than on Earth. You are closer to Hell and they want those lost souls for Satan just as much as we want them for God. You should perform a protection ritual every morning when you wake up to safeguard yourselves against undesirable encounters with them. If you’re not choosing to move on to Heaven, there’s always the chance of being damned to Hell
if
you are led astray. That’s the most important thing you need to understand here tonight. If you take the oath of a spirit guide instead of going to Heaven, your soul will not be safe until Jesus returns. And no one knows when that will happen. It could be tomorrow or in five thousand years.”
“So, this is our mission, should we choose to accept it? And this message will self-destruct in sixty seconds?” Nate sounded grim, but I also detected this weird hint of anticipation in his voice.
Dr. Judy tilted her head to the side, and I squeezed Nate’s hand.
“Um, yeah, we don’t have much time to decide this, right? I mean, you told us our time was up at midnight and we’ve already been here a half hour.”
She glanced toward the wall clock. “I have my next appointment in fifteen minutes. So yes, you must decide quickly.”
I rubbed my chin with my free hand. “Now, when you say appointment, I assume it’s with someone in Limbo, since it’s so late here on the real Earth. But that’s the thing, how are you counseling my parents and stuff when they’re not dead?”