He thought his mother was going to faint. “What happened to your eye?”
Justin broke down. The angel stood next to him, but didn’t touch him. Justin was glad he didn’t.
His mother regained her composure and knelt on the floor. “Justin. Justin, baby, what’s wrong?”
He kept shaking his head in his hands. “Mommy, I wanna go home.” This was all a dream. His mother would make it all better.
“Okay, honey, okay.” She got up and went to the nurse. “I’ll sign him out.” She turned back to him, “Does it hurt anywhere?”
“I don’t know!” His mother tugged on Justin’s hand to pull him up. Justin finally got up, his face wet with tears and his eyes glossy. He went out with his mother, the angel right behind them.
His mother opened the back door putting in her purse and the angel climbed in just before she closed the door. Justin watched as the angel even put his seat belt on. Justin put his on, glancing in the back seat.
“What’s wrong?”
The angel smiled. “Nothing,” Justin said, and his mother started the car.
When Justin got home, he went right to bed. He tried to slam the door in the angel’s face, but the angel opened the door and let himself in. “Justin, I know this is difficult for you.”
“I didn’t want this!” He pointed to his eye. “My father’s going to kill me!”
The angel sat on the edge of the bed while Justin drew his knees up to his chin. “They’ll get used to it. What you have to get used to is what you’re going to use to save men’s souls.”
“Why do I have to do it? Why can’t you?”
“Because by the time I get to them, they’re irredeemable. I am Sariel, an angel of death.”
“I have to kill people?” Justin was horrified.
“No! No,” the angel put his hand on Justin’s foot under the blanket. “I am the angel of eternity, trembling, and thunder.” He pointed to his own right eye. “You bear my symbol. That coin was meant for you.”
“You said that already. I don’t know why.”
His mother’s voice came through the door. “Justin? Who are you talking to?”
“Nobody, Mom.” Justin muttered, “Are you going to be with me forever?”
“Not forever, unless you want me to.”
“Will I get old?”
“Not like other people.”
“And I’m going to heaven?”
“Yes, you’ll go to heaven.”
“Will my parents?”
“They might.”
“How do I save their souls?”
“That’s for you to see when it happens.”
“Can you show me?”
Sariel got up. “Let’s see what happens, when the novelty wears off.” Sariel stood at the door, and his mother came inside with a tray of his favorite things: grapes, cheese, and pepperoni sticks. Sariel waited at the open door, smiled at Justin, and walked out as his mother said, “Will you tell me what happened?”
“You’re not going to believe it,” Justin said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
His father sat back at the table. “You’re right. I don’t believe it.”
Justin stared at his mashed potatoes. His sister was giggling maniacally, enjoying every second he squirmed in his chair. This was supposed to be his birthday dinner, but it had turned into his birthday inquisition.
“Jose,” said his mother sharply to his father. His sister finally burst out laughing. Both parents looked sharply at her. “Amanda, go to your room.”
Amanda, laughing, slipped out of her chair and skipped up to her room. Justin sat hunched down in his chair.
His mother started saying something in Portuguese, to which his father responded in the same language. Justin had never learned the language, but his sister had, and now they could talk freely about him without him being in the room. Yet he could tell by the tone of voice that his mother was brokering no arguments. Finally, his father said to Justin, “We’ll talk to Father B.”
“Father B?” He was the priest of the church that they went to every Saturday night for mass. Father B had taught the confirmation class that he was in. He wasn’t quite a cool priest, but he was better than Father Dodo – Daudelous. “Do we have to?”
“It could be a demon,” he said. “And if it is, we have to exorcise it.”
“Jose,” said his mother. “You can’t believe that’s true.”
“What else can it be? How can this angel say my child can save people’s souls?”
“Why don’t you let him try it?” His mother got up, and started throwing the plates together, clanging and crunching them together. “Or do you think you’re that perfect?”
“Es tu?”
His mother dropped the plates. She stormed up to Justin. “Go ahead,” she said, tears in her eyes. “Purify me like you said you can.”
“What makes you think –”
Justin didn’t know what to do. His mother knelt on the floor, her head bowed.
“Fatima!”
Justin did the only thing he could think of. He stretched out his hand. When he did, a small sliver of light came out of it – and resolved into a golden sword. He looked up at his father, who bent down now and was trying to drag his mother away, but his mother knelt there crying.
Instead of striking his mother, he struck his father’s arms with the sword, and he jerked his hands back suddenly, as if struck. His mother fell forward, her shoulder pierced by the sword.
There was silence.
His father stared at him. His mother rocked back to sit on her heels, looking up at Justin.
Then his father smacked Justin across the face. “You dare to hit me!”
His mother got up, putting herself between them. “Don’t you see? Didn’t you feel what he did?”
His father was looking at his arms. He had felt something, it was obvious. “You don’t hit me, young man. Go to your room!”
Justin burst into tears again and ran upstairs to his room. He threw open the door and sitting on his bed was the angel in his button-down vest, his shirt, and his pants. “You said it would purify them!” Justin screamed at the angel.
“I also said that if they choose to go back to what they were doing before they were purified, that was their choice. Your father felt your grace and refused it.”
Justin panted through tears, “Now he’s going to hit me.”
“I don’t think so,” said Sariel, holding out his arms. “I will protect you.”
Justin, without thinking, ran into the angel’s arms and sobbed. He heard the door crash open. Then he heard the voice say, in a deep and rumbling baritone, “You shall not harm this child.”
“Who – who – ”
“I am Sariel of the eternity and the trembling, bringer of death and healing, and I protect this boy in the name of the Lord.”
“Wow…” came a girl’s gasp. Amanda. Justin suddenly stopped crying, but was laughing. Justin lifted his head, and could see orange through his lids, like he was facing a bright light. He opened his eyes was assaulted by brightness. It resolved into a man wearing only a loose piece of gossamer material covered from one shoulder down to his groin, fastened by a rope belt around his trim hips. He had wings, huge wings that spread out behind him along the window and his bed, its tips touching the sloped ceiling. He was still blond, still had blue eyes, and looked down at Justin with a gentle smile.
Justin turned around in the angel’s strong arms, faced his father, sister, and mother and said quietly, “Now, do you believe me?”