Cherubim Castles and the Garden of Bliss: The Elysium Scrolls

Copyright © 2012 by Bambi Harris

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-6043-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-6044-0 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-6045-7 (dj)

iUniverse rev. date: 11/09/2012

Contents

Scroll One…

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

To Sandy Foo, a whimsically wonderful woman with a sharp mind and wit, fairy etherealism and endearing heart

To Boudica, for her ever wise advice and kind-heartedness. Thank you for your sincere friendship and invaluable support

And to Deidre; sweet, lively and fantastic in all ways. What fun you are! A spring of inspiration and joy always rises from you and your lovely smile

Scroll One…

I’m dead. Just so we’re clear, I’ve been dead for more than five years now, at least my last death took place about then, but time moves differently over here in the afterlife.

I should rephrase that. I am definitely in the afterlife but no longer in the general population. As we speak I have been here for an hour.

And where is here? That is an exceptionally good question and I hope I can answer it in a compelling manner, as I promise, it is a jaw dropping account to say the least.

I don’t care much for journals. Usually they’re full of a whole lot of wishy-washy stuff about feelings and bad hair days. As for my kind of journal, well a bad hair day for me usually entails a tussle with an alien ancient god or the reluctance of a stubborn ghost.

Normal is relative and it’s so far out of the box for me that Pandora throws up her hands in defeat. So one might ask why I venture to document my crazy existence when there is not enough ink in the afterlife to explain it?

Well it was my best friend, Eric’s idea and I am looking at him now, as the dying light of the setting sun illuminates his beautiful angel face while he assembles his tree house.

With a similar passion for vintage clothing, I am enjoying Eric’s purple paisley corduroy suit. On any of our missions, even when necessity dictates the need for a toga, he makes sure to keep on his horn-rimmed glasses. Despite his angel sibling’s cringeful reactions to his fashion and excessive cheerfulness, his glasses are a kind of symbol of his unique connection to humanity.

The very ancient looking tree he is building the small house in, appears to be rather solitary and nestled between two grassy flowerless hills. I sense water nearby but I have learned that wandering too far in foreign worlds with low lighting is asking for trouble.

We have literally just come from a party in the angel city, a farewell of sorts; only it was us that were leaving. I am completely exhausted but so astounded by recent events that joy alone might keep me awake.

It is also my thirty-fifth birthday today, or the anniversary of my murder, so essentially my fifth death day. They don’t celebrate birthdays in the afterlife as most people have more than one life.

Regardless of your age at death, each year you either grow older or younger until you stop at thirty-five, and so this is what I will look like for eternity. I might have a picture somewhere to put in this journal, its not like I’ll change or anything.

In case I submit more than one picture, I am the one who is always wearing something from the past, usually a medieval dress; I favor red. I have long brown hair, big blue eyes and a slightly imperfect nose. I am slender but voluptuous and for a while at least, should have a permanent grin affixed to my face.

I actually couldn’t wait to get a pen (an authentic medieval quill pen) that Roy scrounged up from me during time travel at some point. Apparently he had been holding onto it for centuries waiting to give it to me once I knew.

So without further adieu, let me write my first journal entry and I will tell you what’s so amazing. Scratch that, I will call this a scroll, as I am literally writing this on centuries old parchment, and journal sounds insufficient. (Plus I’m too busy to write on a daily basis).

I might go back and forth, and even though Roy, (the archangel, Metratron, who dresses like a wild west cowboy and is a father figure to me), put normal ink in the quill, I am bound to have to scratch a few things out, and there is no white-out to be had here.

Beginning with my immediate surroundings, I am currently looking at Eric (who is formally known as the archangel, Uriel, and along with Roy, they both share part of my soul) He is enamored by the sixties era and has been the one being I can count on through thick, thin and all the in-between.

He tried to transport his tree house from the afterlife plain to our new world (did I mention I know nothing about the new world?). Anyway, it wasn’t a great success.

Usually he can freeze a whole room in motion or change our outfits by thinking about them. He can do anything and he knows just about everything, but I guess the new world is a little further away than any of us expected and the tree house arrived in pieces. I gather he never did an undercover Earth mission as a carpenter.

Hammering nails beside him is Avery (insert swoon here). He has his white knit sweater (my favorite) tied around his waist and I’m not afraid to say that his white undershirt flatters his toned physique. I am doing my best to keep my feelings of admiration quiet so it doesn’t go straight to his ego when he reads my thoughts.

So how does a seemingly average girl like me catch the eye of the sexiest undead man of the year (fifth year in a row no less)?

Since I died I have finally grasped the importance of self-love so I wont say I don’t have my amiable qualities, though it is still a mystery to me. I will likely be pinching my pale skin for the remainder of eternity every time I look at him and lock hearts with him.

I don’t mean that in a mushy way, though I do a little, but we just found out that we were both created from the souls of Eric and Roy, and were one soul divided into two.

Eric assures me we are not brother and sister, rather an inseparable pair of uniquely defined soul mates. Our bond has been likened to a pair of salt and pepper shakers, and he has since being calling us a ‘matching set’.

My beloved looks as tired as I feel and with the moon coming onto the scene, my curiosity is piqued further as to what we will find here but also what we might have to be weary of. The campfire is creating a glow behind Avery’s sandy curly hair and maybe its because I know he is part angel, but I definitely think it gives off that halo affect.

He just winked at me with his vivid green eyes and I did everything in my power not to blush. I haven’t learned how to fine-tune my new telepathic gift yet so he is probably going to tease me later about what I have been writing in here.

I will give a little background to my story, as I haven’t said much about me yet. I can’t remember the last time I sat down and wasn’t interrupted by some level of chaos!

When I first died, Avery greeted me; he was head greeter at Heaven’s gates at the time and we became friends instantly. He set me up in a melting job. For the small few who haven’t heard, melting is a high profile job where you decide if murderers are reformed, reincarnated or melted, and it was a hard job.

Not only that, but I worked with some nasty people and one of the murderers escaped, but I won’t get into that now. Anyway, this job was kind of like a celebrity style position and I had reporters from the Grim Reader following me around as well as some nosy citizens.

(Just an aside) Avery just asked me if I was going to help them and then laughed because girls don’t know how to hammer nails, the nerve! He may have achieved more than anyone I know, along with his trophies from Apollo Academy, but I still saved the angels from the ancient gods and I was the best ghost retrieval counselor on record!

Anyway, so after that whole melting debacle, I was going through a lot of stress because I was dating Adam. He is a handsome scribe and gardener from the sixteenth century part of the afterlife. He is very sweet and helped me refine my seeyer abilities, (I can see into souls and sense the goodness in others).

He was also a seeyer, I mean he still is, but we are not dating anymore. He was still married and dating someone else when we were together. I did struggle with that, and of course my self-esteem. Then on top of everything, I thought Avery was dating Denny Winters, (reporter for the Grim Reader).

Well, because of my stress I fell into the underground, which everyone calls the MLC, (Misery Loves Company), and that is when I met Eric. He lived there and was the counselor for anyone in the afterlife who got so angry or despairing that they fell into the underground. He patiently worked with them until they got enough hope to return to the surface.

It hasn’t been my only time there I tell you, but I kind of like it, so the idea of getting miserable enough isn’t a complete deterrent.

Well then I overcame my sadness and moved into the sixteenth century village to stay away from reporters and the public eye. I live in a village close to Adam’s and my past life brother, Richard, lives around the corner from me. Well he still does but I’ve moved now (to the mystery world, remember?)

This is probably a lot to keep up on. Did I mention I never kept a journal? Roy is always saying, ‘Slow down, don’t get your knickers in a knot, Filly’. So I will try to simplify, after all, I am very tired and it looks like Eric and Avery will be finished soon.

So Eric, Avery, and I, used to be on a ghost retrieval team together and the three of us are very close. They really helped me a lot when I was sent unwillingly on a time travel tour and stuck in some of my past lives on Earth.

After that, Avery and I went to Apollo Academy and that’s when I met his brother, Alexander, who I call, Lexi. We both studied mortal mapping while Avery studied harbinger work.

It was the most tormenting phase of my afterlife. I thought all my friends had abandoned me but my room mate, Elly, was always there for me and in the end it was all a big test to make sure I knew how important it was to love myself. I will never forget that lesson because I would hate for all my friends to ignore me like that again!

Oh and Elly turned out to be Eric! (Those shape shifters make things hard for us mere mortals).

During that time we befriended our teacher, Jeremiah, (he is extremely hyper and happy, and no matter what it is, he loves a challenge). He turned out to be the archangel, Jehudiel. Yes I know; we seem to be surrounded by them. I didn’t even believe in angels when I was on Earth and here I am, partially one myself.

Jeremiah joined us on the big mission to the alien afterlife. We had to help the citizens there get their freedom from the ancient gods. Turns out the old ancient Grecian myths had some element of truth to them.

So you must be saying, that is too much information for one to take in all at once. (Well who is going to read this anyway, right? But I might become something even more amazing one day and one of the people living here in hundreds of years will be perusing these very pages in our library!)

It’s all speculation of course. Even Eric and Roy don’t really know why we have been chosen for the new world or at least they are not telling me. I wouldn’t say I’m frightened but it’s getting a little cold here and I can very much sense that we are not alone.

I guess we will explore more when we wake up and I’m glad that Eric doesn’t sleep so he can watch over us.

Pauline, my endlessly fun friend from my past life and my afterlife, is watching Rufus, my dog, and Charlie, Avery’s goat, right now at her place in the fifties era. (She is back on the human afterlife plane where Avery and I used to live).

I am glad Rufus isn’t here as I don’t want him roaming a foreign world without knowing what was out there first. I didn’t notice any buildings around, but I sense that this land was once inhabited.

So in getting you, (the mysterious reader in my future library), up to date- I must tell you the most amazing part of it all.

After we returned from the alien afterlife mission, I started to get very sick with visions and I kept passing out. Just as I was trying to sort out my issues, Eric was getting a little bleak, (which isn’t a normal thing for an angel) and most astonishingly, this was all during the time that Roy told us about Armageddon.

Perhaps now, as you read this, it will seem like ancient history. Earth to you might seem to be a land that people talked about almost mythically, the mysterious world of Atlantis, but I assure you it was real.

I lived there many times apparently, though I only remember my last life and still retain my name from there. It was a strange thing to witness; the dark shadow slowly and peacefully making its way across the planet and every living thing falling asleep, dying and moving directly to the afterlife.

Eric took me to space and we watched the planet explode a few days after. That was when he told me the truth, about Avery and I and our souls all being connected.

He had told me about my changes because when he took me out on the Armageddon eve and we stood on top of a plane so I could jump off in a literal leap of faith; it was then that I sprouted wings. He didn’t know it was going to happen that way, he didn’t know what part of me held the angel within but it was beautiful and amazing, (if not somewhat painful).

They had separated Avery and I, as we still had our own lessons to learn. I spent a long time in the MLC with Eric. A lot of the Armageddon people had been transferred there temporarily because of overpopulation issues. A lot of them are still there now and I know Roy and Jeremiah are working on it as we speak.

I had found a way to heal the recent Earth arrivals by touch and just a few words. It’s a power that I can’t explain or understand but every time I touched one of them, I felt their love come back to me.

Pauline is working on some kind of administrative thing to do with the transfers, (which is strange enough as she is not the secretarial type, trust me). I have no idea when I’ll see her next but she is working with Idmon, an alien seer, who was able to do an exchange program with Lexi, as he really likes the stimulation of the human world.

So that is everything, in a huge condensed nutshell. I’m sure I missed parts but I think that’s quite enough for today. I imagine it will be some time before I write more but no doubt there will be a lot of strangeness to reveal when it comes time.

One other thing; when God created us from extracting a part of Eric and Roy’s souls, he kept part of us human and added an element of his own. We are mystery hybrids for now, unnamed, uncategorized and we do not know what it all means.

And you might ask— what of the literal other half of my soul? Since I died and arrived in the afterlife, we have been so close. Countless times I wanted to tell him how I felt but I was afraid because I cared so much for him, I never wanted to lose him as my friend.

Had we known we were literally created for each other, it might have made the tension a lot less of an issue! It all worked out in the end and before we discovered the truth, I found the courage to at least hint at how I felt, which was a brave endeavor for someone like me! And now he says I am his world.

He is amazing beyond words and on every level. I am amazing too, for the record. I will not give up on myself ever again, whoever or whatever I am.

Everything now is a new experience but Eric said my leap of faith was an eternal vow and that I must believe that everything will be okay.

And so I will.

Eric has just proudly announced that he created some small mattresses and quilts in the tree house for Avery and I to sleep in. He doesn’t have to tell me twice, I am not at all tempted to go exploring any time soon!

Lets hope I can go a day or two without a drama or adventure inflicted on me!

Until the next entry my celestial friends, wish me luck in the new world.

            Penny Lane.

Year, World and Time unknown.

Chapter One

I wearily reached for the heavy quilt that Eric had created me, only to discover it was completely absent, along with the tree house that I thought I was sleeping in.

I shot up, panicked, and tried to focus my eyes in the semi darkness, but what I saw only frightened me more.

I was now alone, and I had no idea why or how I got there. The grass beneath me was soft, but cool from the early morning air, and my red medieval dress did little to alleviate my skin from the chill that permeated the atmosphere.

I remained very still as I looked around, careful not to stir anything that might have gotten me there. I turned slowly to look behind me and with further inspection I could see I was definitely lying on top of a grassy hill beneath one solitary tree.

More grassy hills branched out to my left and right and from what I could see in front of me at the bottom of my hill, a flat, untouched but vividly lush terrain, expanded to the horizon from there.

The moon illuminated some of the landscape and in spite of it being dark; the colors of the green leaves of the tree were vibrant as if painted on using the technique of an old Technicolor movie.

My fear began to dissipate and I listened intently. My seeyer abilities allowed me to see into souls but since the angel part of my soul had been activated as such, I learned to trust my senses more. Even though there didn’t seem to be anyone in my immediate vicinity, I got the very distinct feeling that I was being watched.

I knew I wasn’t dreaming or having a vision and so that meant I either walked here in my sleep or someone had brought me here, and somehow not woken me. I couldn’t sense Avery or Eric nearby as their life force created a calming vibration within me.

I turned to look up at the tree again and had a strange premonitional feeling that one day I would sit beneath it and look out at this world once it was built upon and populated.

Unsure of what to do next, I crossed my arms against the gold corset strings of my dress and held my hands over my ears to combat the cold. I quickly inspected my long brown hair with my hand and found it to be in generally good order then I quietly stood to look out more, in an attempt to hone in on my loved ones.

There was something about this unexplored world that comforted me. As I remembered the previous night when Avery and I found out we were part of each other’s soul, it brought joy to my heart instantly.

It still astonished me that I was part angel, who could say that? I promised to be brave and unafraid of change and so I would choose to look at this strange awakening as a sign to prove myself.

I pressed my hand against the tree trunk and looked in all directions, trying to decide which direction I would go. Now that the sun was exchanging shifts with the moon, I could see further into the distance and noticed the silhouette of what appeared to be a structure.

Suddenly I felt movement underneath my hand and quickly shook it off as I stared at the tree trunk seemingly coming to life. I thought