Heavenly Creatures

“Tara!” Mom was standing at my door, hands on her waist in her most no-nonsense attitude. “Aren’t you going to wake up?”

“Give me five more minutes,” I mumbled into my cloud-pillow. I was rudely awakened by having the blankets ripped off me, and I curled into a ball, shivering.

“Mom!”

“It’s almost nine,” mom said.

“It is?” I glanced at the clock and sat up, suddenly alert. “Oh shoot!”

“The alarm was going forever,” mom said, already walking out of the room. “Don’t you have a study date?”

“Ugh, yes, I do,” I said, trudging to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Something caught my attention from the corner of my eye, and I turned slightly to see a black fog in the corner of my room. Instinctively, I shivered and quickly looked away. First the old man, now this. I should ask Sun about these strange visions of mine.

I hoisted my backpack onto my shoulder and walked out the front door. “Mom, I’m off!”

The shadow followed me as I walked the two blocks to the park. I prayed that Sun would be there to explain this to me. Apparently, dragons were brave, but I wasn’t sure I was a dragon. And I was feeling scared. I had watched enough movies to know that black shadows were bad news.

“Hey, Tara!” Sun was sitting on a table outside the cafe, waving at me. “I see you’re being followed.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” I said, running to hide behind Sun. “Can you please make it go away?”

Sun nodded. “It looks like your third eye is beginning to open. A soul in purgatory is following you to ask for help.”

My mind raced with questions. “Wait, wait, wait. Slow down. Let me just get this straight.” I held a hand over my forehead, which was where I assumed my third eye was. “Why is my third eye opening? Can you un-open it? What is a soul in purgatory doing here? And why is it following me for help?”

Sun seemed to find some mote of compassion in his soul at my distress. He stood up and approached the shadow slowly. His hands began to glow as he brought them up to the shadow. The light seemed to soothe the being until it dissolved.

“What was that?” I squeaked (that was twice in two days). “What did you do?”

“I fed it some merits,” Sun said. “It should find some peace now.”

“I thought you needed merits to get back into heaven,” I said. “Why would you give them away?”

“Silly Tara,” Sun chuckled. “Sharing merits with the unfortunate increases my merits too.”

“Oh,” I said. “So, it’s purely selfish.”

“Well,” Sun said, looking uncomfortable. “It’s not supposed to be.”

I raised an eyebrow at him.

Sun sighed. “Okay, maybe it’s a little selfish.”

I pointed at Sun’s hands. “How can I do that too? You know, just in case they come for me again.”

Sun laughed. “They’re not coming for you to hurt you,” he said. “That’s a common misconception. That’s why exorcism was invented—out of fear. Compassion, not fear, is the correct response to suffering.”

“That’s rich, coming from you,” I said. “You’re a celestial being, so of course you wouldn’t be afraid. Normal people like me would be terrified of seeing a shadow following them.”

“What is ‘normal’?” Sun pontificated. “It’s just a concept that people make up to get you to conform.”

I sighed. “Thanks for the sermon, but you still haven’t answered any of my questions.”

Sun sighed. “Fine, your third eye was probably already developed, but being around me is probably what’s affecting it. And once it’s open, it’s hard to close it again. Souls in purgatory are commonly found in the in-between, and it’s following you because it knows you can see it.

“And to answer your final question, you already know how to help them; just fill your heart with compassion and love and direct the flow toward them.”

“Wow,” I said. “This is a lot.”

“Even so,” Sun said. “It’s reality, just not the kind you’re used to. Why don’t you sit down?”

I sat down gracelessly. “Let’s get this over with.” Look what being near Sun had done to me! Nine o’clock in the morning, and already a shadow was following me around! Sun might think he was amazing, but I knew better. He was just an arrogant, selfish personality not unlike the other arrogant, selfish personalities in the “in-between.” That was the only explanation for why he was sucking me into his crazy world of shadows and supposedly celestial beings.

Sun seemed to sense how disgruntled I was with him. He didn’t make another peep about anything other than astronomy until we had finished the last problem. Halfway through, I accepted the latte he bought for me. (Side note: did he get a stipend for these kinds of expenses? Not that I was complaining.)

“So,” Sun said, lacing his fingers together in front of him. “Coming back to the matter at hand, you still haven’t answered any of my questions yet. For instance, why are your eyes closed?”

“This again?” I shook my head. “It should be obvious by now that I don’t know anything about anything.”

“Hmmm…” Sun stared at me for a long moment before smiling slightly. The smile could be classified as more of a smirk.

“Let me talk to the dragon, then,” he said.

And then he put his hand up to my forehead, which I was about to protest except I blacked out again.