Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Matthew 5:5

Late January 2009

I was standing outside apartment door, wondering if I was doing the right thing or not. Bugging Evangeline just didn't seem like something I should be doing, Gabriel's urgings or not. So there I was, having cancelled an appointment with Dr. DeWalt at the art school in favor of looking for the woman.

She'd quit her job at the hospice. It took calls to three places to find out where she had worked and then a bit of bullshitting to get them to tell me anything else. I didn't much like lying, but the urgency from Gabriel was compelling. I put the car in the back alley by the Fruited Plain and walked up the couple blocks into Wooly Mammoth Apartments, and you honestly have to see the place to believe how tacky it is.

So there I was, laying heavy odds I'd get arrested or something. Gabriel was silent as I knocked at the door. There was no answer the first time and I said under my breath "I don't know about this...." The angel's continued silence wasn't reassuring.

I knocked on the door again and the rest of the night is something I'll never quite forget.

Everything happened so fast, I really didn't know what was going on. I'd watched Mom waste away and I could smell the same Death smell there as well. The acrid smoke made me wonder, as did the creepy sitar music. I had no idea what I was walking into, but a little nudge from Gabriel kept me going.

~~You need to be there. Go to her.~~

I wasn't really going to argue the point. Honest. "Vanna? It's Bea. You in there?"

I heard one of those long sighs of resignation and didn't know what it meant. "I know. Yes. I'm here." The coughing spell that followed paused me long enough to calm my guts. I spent half my summer throwing up, so it's still pretty easy to get nauseated, especially when you can practically feel the coughs across the room from you. I hadn't yet gotten to the bedroom when she said with a little more clarity. "You should go, Bea. This....I don't want you to see this."

Watching Mom die had steeled me a bit to sickness and I honestly didn't think that I could see much worse. I walked through the bedroom door and braced myself for whatever by starting out rather conversationally, "They said you'd quit at the hospice. I had to guess...." What greeted me just stopped me cold.

Vanna was there, curled up in the bed, coughing huge racking coughs. She couldn't stop herself to greet me with even so much as a smile and I was feeling it in my guts again. The room wasn't nearly as smoky, but the crap in the air certainly wasn't going to help where someone was already having trouble breathing.

To describe this particular face of Death would probably take a lot more art than I have in me. That old song about 'Bad Bad Leroy Brown' springs to mind, though. She lay there, face swollen and her hair gone. I knew she'd been sick, but this just flat blindsided me as I took it in. My face fell and I felt it melted from conversational, to shocked, to appalled, and then the upset grabbed me at the end. It took a minute to get it back together and then out tumbled, "Ohmigod...Vanna...what the?"

"The Afterworld is calling to my spirit, Beatrice, and my Avatar is about to go back for another turn on the Wheel."

Oh man. I didn't need to hear that. The obvious pain, and the memories from Mom's death rose up to scream at me. Inside, I lurched and the world spun on an unfamiliar axis.

I pulled myself together and checked things out. Her immune system was non-existent. I didn't speculate then, but I guess having to call an AIDS hospice should have made the clue phone ring a bit sooner. Duh. Ravaged from the inside out like this, my lack of experience with Life magicks gave me nothing to offer or even hope for. I didn't try to con myself or her into believing there was a way to save her from the disease.

The image of Evangeline there, dressed in white, waiting for the end...alone; it struck me somehow. It was helplessness that struck me. The injustice and the self-pity at the pending loss of a friend I had know for far too short of a time. It was maybe the serenity--though the smoke and the music could go--or maybe her acceptance of the end. Then, as I stood there and waited in that place between thoughts, it was the isolation, and how Vanna had acted untouchable that hit me. Being alone.

I could do something about that.

~~Exactly.~~ commented Gabriel. Then something in my world changed, and it was something important.

I can't really begin to describe all the things that happened in that bedroom in Wolly Mammoth Apartments. It may not be important that I do. Several things stick out in my mind as having impacted me and my sense of things.

I'm not sure how Evangeline saw me. I mean, I know she knew about my summer of fun and that the ordeal had pretty much blown my doors off. The Klynnites had pretty much taken everything they could get and it has taken me the six months since to find what I lost. I survived it with my soul intact, but I haven't been much happy since. Surviving is about all I'm doing--and I damn well know it. I always feel broken inside.

I got over by the bed and knelt close, daring to put my hand out to touch Evangeline. I looked at her and she seemed comfortable for the moment, then I said, "It's okay, I know someone who can help." Then I swallowed back the remaining lurch in my gut and added, "She better, anyway...."

"There is no help, Beatrice. They'll tell you." She pulled back from me, her fever bright eyes didn't look at me directly.

I insisted.

"I've died before, Beatrice. Once more won't hurt any more."

Though she met my gaze like she'd comfort a small child, I stood firm. "No, Vanna. I'm not that fragile. Sue is Euthanatos...I would think it was her obligation to help you."

Evangeline started coughing again and I spasmed with her a little. She murmurred at the end of it, "She won't have to if we wait much longer..." Then her eyes shot up to a place above my shoulder.

I looked and saw nothing, turning back to say "What?"

"She says to listen to you." Vanna's eyes were still fixed on that same place.

I wondered a moment and then fell back to something Raziel had said to me peered into the spirit world. That's when I saw the ghost. "Goodness..."

"They're waiting for me."

I'm not going to tell you that I was ready to see that ghost standing there. I'm also not going to tell you that I get this whole reincarnation thing either. I didn't understand what it meant and especially didn't understand what Vanna was saying about becoming a ghost, getting stuck, and maybe by choice. However, somehow I think I understood something of Sue's problem right then, though it was very hard to say -what- Sue's problem really was.

That's the sucky part about mages, they all have different ideas about the way things are. This turn of events, especially with the mess with Sue, clearly threw me the curve I wasn't equipped to catch. I really needed Rad, somehow thinking in terms of 1 and 0 might help me here.

Vanna gave me a soft look. "Don't be confused, Beatrice. You'll see. Evangeline will be gone. But the Quiet Man will go on."

Still, I found myself stuck there. "But I thought we all go on...you mean we all get stuck?" Everyone, and I mean -everyone- talked about Reincarnation as the law of the universe. Getting stuck as a ghost, especially against Mom's death, made me shudder inside.

I felt a breath of air puff across my cheek. "You are thinking too black-and-white, my friend."

I looked around the room, "Mom didn't get stuck...I don't understand."

Evangeline had closed her eyes, seeming almost to daze off for a moment. Then she said "Tell Kim her wings are beautiful."

~< The sun falls below the horizon, fading into the red-purples of twilight.>~

"Wings?" I was lost. Nothing new for this Beatrice.

Just a nod, "She knows. So do those watching us always."

Bewilderment is probably one of my strongest traits. I didn't pretend to understand and I really wasn't sure that I could, so I pulled out the phone and hit the autodial. "I'll get help, hon. It will be okay." Inside and outside I was upset, but I was also calm, too.

Evangeline said quietly "Yes. It will. Very soon."

I wasn't comforted, but I was also busy, which made it okay. I had drawn a mental line between these two Euthies that needed to make them connect. I left the message at home and sensed approval from the angel, which made my hands more steady. Vanna fell asleep and the ghosts hung very close by while I watched.

It was probably an hour or more I sat there, embroiled in my thoughts, before my celphone rang again. It was Kim and I told her the deal. I watched Vanna and the ghostly onlookers the whole time, feeling lost. I wasn't sure how I was going to take watching another person die. I miss Mom.

Evangeline woke up and said "No. No, I think she can handle it." I guess she was talking to the ghosts.

I cupped my hand over the phone and told Kim, "Um, we just need Sue, hon. She and Vanna have some important business, I believe." Kim was going to have to go find Sue, which was going to be a neat trick. I hung up the phone again and waited some more amid the living and the dead while Vanna talked to them. I was nervous, felt under the gun, and Gabriel offered me comfort.

"Beatrice?"

I roused from my thoughts at the question. "I...I'm here" I was hoping that Kim would find Sue before long.

"Listen to me. Don't be sad, please."

Jarred by such a request, I said with a little hesitation, "I don't know how I feel about it, Vanna. I killed two people before I saw death the first time." I don't have the practice that others have with this. I killed people and no matter how good the reason, I never quite stopped feeling at odds with myself about it.

Evangeline looked past me again, saying "But don't you see, your Saint is with you?"

I paused and said "Saint..." Then it struck me that she could see Gabriel, but how? I bostered myself, not knowing how to feel about someone seeing my avatar and said, "He saved me, I think."

She gazed at my angel. "They tend to." I was again lost.

"He's patient with you."

I just nodded faintly, not knowing what to say to that.

"You think I've gone over into Quiet, don't you?"

"No. I just don't know what to think." I was dealing with Sue and I could see the ghosts in the room. Something was up, even if I didn't get it.

"Don't think. Watch. Witness for me."

~~Yes. Bear Witness.~~ the angel chimed in.