Early this morning, Kara went for a walk on her own. I went with her, keeping myself invisible so as not to disturb her. There has been something on her mind and heart for the past several days, but I was uncertain whether it was something that she wanted to share, so I have simply tried to make myself available to her. It seems that what she wanted to discuss was not something she wanted to share with Freya and George.
“Are demons always wrong?” she asked me after we had been walking some time.
I considered this for a moment. “Some speak the truth, when it suits them,” I answered. “Rarely without an agenda, though.”
She snorted. “And angels are always right, I suppose?”
“Oh, certainly not.”
That seemed to surprise her, and she glanced in my direction.
“Our connection to the divine does not give us infallibility,” I said. “Just because we have access to the knowledge of the universe does not mean we are capable of holding it all. We make mistakes just as you do. That is why there is such careful oversight of angelic work, and so many of us who are involved with each case. We help one another.”
She walked for a while in silence. It was a warm day even so soon after sunrise, but still she wore a hoodie, the comfort of the garment worth the heat of it. I could see the ripples moving across her thoughts, but could not see beyond them.
“You think the system really works, then?” she asked. “You’d bet on the judgment of angels?”
I began to understand what was her concern. “We aren’t the ones who exact judgment,” I said softly. “We only carry out the sentence.”
She didn’t say anything.
“You heard what Asoharith was saying, didn’t you?”
She nodded. “We may have been out of sight but we could see and hear everything. And yes, she’s a stone-cold gross bitch who grave-robbed her own self and shanked you and I’ll hate her forever…”
The ‘but’ remained unspoken, but it was there, hovering between us. “It’s all right, Kara.”
She lifted her eyes to me, miserable with confusion and worry. “I can’t see that she was wrong,” she said. “I’ve been over and over it and I trust you, Ace, I do, but I still don’t understand. Why is she condemned when she didn’t know the consequences of her actions? Why did she fall into such a terrible punishment just for not doing enough in her life?”
“That was not why she fell,” I told her. “There is no rubric for a successful life.”
“But that’s even worse! How do you know that you’ve done enough to squeak by if there are no guidelines? How can heaven expect someone to meet their expectations if they don’t even have it laid out what those expectations are?”
I stopped her and made her face me. We had left Esther’s neighborhood and were standing on a stretch of road enclosed by trees, and the haze of the morning isolated us even more. I knelt before her and revealed myself so that she could look into my eyes.
“There is no checklist, Kara, nothing you need to know that you don’t already know,” I told her. “Asoharith didn’t fall because of inaction. She fell because of indifference.”
Kara blinked at me.
“The essence of faith is caring about someone outside of yourself—realizing that your own happiness depends on that of others as well. Shannon saw that in her life, but she chose to turn away from it because it was easier. That is why she fell. And that is why you won’t.”
Her eyes were glittering with tears. “Are you sure?” she asked me.
“Kara, you put your soul at risk only a few days ago to save my life,” I reminded her. “And you are an artist. Every day you open your heart to others.”
“Shannon was an artist too,” she said, her voice very small.
I shook my head. “She took pleasure in art, and she used it for her own good, but she stopped sharing art with anyone long before her death. And art loses its meaning when it is no longer shared.”
She exhaled, and then she covered her face with her hands. I drew her close, humming softly.
Finally she cleared her throat and wiped her eyes, turning away and starting back towards the house with purposeful strides. “Listen to me, freaking out when you’re the one who got stabbed,” she said. “The rest of us just need to stop clutching our pearls. We’re not the ones still in danger.”
“What happened was as traumatic for you as it was for me—more so, for I have seen heavenly battles before. You have every right to take time to heal from that,” I said firmly.
She stopped on the corner to Esther’s street and took a breath. “I won’t ever stop,” she said, and it rang with a promise that was for more than just me. “I will keep fighting, and keep making the hard choice, and I won’t ever close myself off. I will not fall, and neither will anyone else I ever meet, if I have anything to do with it.”
I believe her. I defy anyone to stand in her way.