Mark glanced at me. I shrugged my shoulders, grasping onto his hands. Was it even possible to say no to an Archangel? Stepping away from our group, Mark and I joined him as he reached out with his hands. Together, Mark and I grasped onto them as he slowly lifted our feet from the ground. I glanced back at my friends as we slowly Ascended away from them, toward what awaited us beyond the earthly realm.
Epilogue
There is no sense of time in the heavenly realm. When Mark and I returned back to our friends, we had no earthly idea that several days had passed. We weren't surprised though, to find them in the place that had drawn us all together.
They greeted us exuberantly as we suddenly appeared on the sand just beyond where they were all lounging. They jumped to their feet, taking turns embracing us as we were passed from one set of arms to the next.
"What are you guys doing here?" I asked, laughing in delight. "Oh Sam," I said, squeezing her in my arms. "How are you feeling?"
"Fit as a fiddle," she said smiling.
Shawn grabbed me up in a bear hug, spinning me around. I laughed out loud at his joy. "It's the only place that made sense," Sam said, finally answering my first question as Shawn gave me one last crushing hug.
"Sis, where have you been?"
"Oh you know, hobnobbing on the heavenly realm and such," I joked good-naturedly.
"That's insane," he said, grinning at us.
"I know right," I said, sinking down on the sand with Sam and Lynn, who both wrapped their arms around my waist, anchoring me to them.
"We were with Haniel," I said, dropping the bombshell.
"What! How?" Lynn asked, confused.
"Haniel made a deal with The Light. He sacrificed himself as an Archangel if it would save us. Once he dragged Victor to The Dark One, The Light gave Haniel his deepest desire."
"And what is that?" Sam asked, enthralled with our tale.
"That he spends all of eternity with his one true love," I answered smiling.
"What?" Kieran asked, clearly shocked. "Haniel was in love?"
"Well, that's a whole other story," I said knowingly.
"So tell it," Kieran said, sinking between John's legs on a big oversized towel.
It took Mark and me several hours to fill them in on Haniel, and what we had learned and experienced once we had left the earthly realm. We tried to give them every detail we could remember. Finding the right words to explain what we had seen proved to be a challenge. Heaven was unlike anything I had ever imagined. I had always pictured it as dreamlike place with Angels bouncing from one cloud to the next. I remembered when I was eight and still struggling to control my emotions, my parents had taken me to Sunday school. The day had been a disaster as I tried to fade into the background, only to have the overly friendly teacher call on me frequently, hoping to draw me out of my shell. By the time my parents picked me up, I was a mess, but I could still recall in the lesson how the teacher had told us the streets of heaven were lined with gold and everyone lived in a mansion. Neither of those assumptions proved to be true.
"It was like entering what I can only imagine the Garden of Eden was like. Lush plants and vegetation grows abundantly everywhere. Animals and people roam the land together, neither harming the other. The air is always the same mild temperature, neither hot nor cold," I said, trying to explain it the best I could in a mishmash of words.
"Why did Haniel want to see you?" John finally asked the most important question.
I glanced at Mark before answering. He nodded his head, smiling at me. "Haniel wanted to see us so he could appoint us to our new job!"
"Job?' Sam asked bewildered.
"Yes, we have been appointed to take over for him," I said.
"Like, as Archangels?" John asked, trying to make sense of our words.
"No, as the first Ascended Angels," I said, shooting Mark a small smile.
"Mark Ascended too?" Sam gasped beside me.
"Yes," I answered.
My answer opened a floodgate of questions and Mark and I answered them the best we could. We were a little unsure of our duties, but Haniel had promised he would contact us soon through the same Archangel that had guided us to the Heavenly Realm.
"So, Haniel has been in love with your mom all these years?" Sam asked.
Mark nodded his head.
"That is sooooooo romantic," she said, sinking back into Shawn's embrace.
"What comes next?" Jaime asked after several moments passed.
"I don't know. It seems so crazy, not having to worry about Victor anymore. I guess we wait for the next bad guy to come around. But in the meantime, I say a family reunion is in order. I'm dying to meet a certain little boy named Logan. I have a secret for his ears only," I said, shooting Jaime a smile.
My friends continued to pepper us with questions. After we had exhausted every detail, I finally stood up and walked toward the water's edge. The peace I felt was unlike any I had ever experienced. It was hard to believe that six months ago I had stood on this exact spot, confused and lost. I could hardly remember the girl I had been as I tried to recall how unsure and insignificant I had felt. Surrounded now by the ones I loved, it seemed like a lifetime ago. Mark joined me at the water's edge and wrapped his arms around my waist. I tilted my head back to look into his eyes, losing myself in the arms of the person that had chosen me over all else.