Three years earlier

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There was a time when Jubilee heard more clearly; when every flutter of the heart or insight of the mind was clearly discerned as the voice of God. Back then, every hunch that she felt was not just a feeling, but intuition; and every image that appeared in her mind's eye was not just a fanciful daydream, but a reality that was yet unseen by natural eyes.

There was never a time that she saw or heard more clearly than when she was surrounded by children.

Wakahisa Children's Home was, essentially, a modern and politically correct way of saying orphanage. Jubilee had never thought that she would be one for children, having babysat a few times as a teenager and found the experience unpleasant. But Wakahisa had been the only volunteer organization willing to take her on and lodge her, without too much preamble, paperwork, or uncomfortable questions. Which, if she was honest, struck her as slightly irresponsible for an institution that dealt with children, but who was she to complain? It was either this or being a homeless stranger in a strange land. And, though it may not have looked so good on Wakahisa's part, it was extraordinarily convenient for her that they had been looking for a full-time volunteer for months and were starting to get desperate, right when she had come along.

Perhaps it was because Wakahisa was a small, unmemorable and unnoticeable sort of place, sequestered on the outer edges of Tokyo and virtually incomparable to the several other mega-charities headquartered in the city. Luckily, they continued to receive funds from overseas ministries and benefactors, to whom the orphanage was as distant in mind as it was in physical locality. Thanks to the amount of people around the world who found satisfaction in meeting their monthly kindness quota via a remote financial donation, Wakahisa managed to stay standing. Getting enough workers to meet the needs of the increasing number of children, however, was another matter.

For Wakahisa was the place where children that nobody wanted went—the slums of the orphanage community. The problem kids, the disabled, the mentally challenged, and the like were all dumped there. From there, they rarely left; being always passed over by prospective adoptive parents from foreign countries, whose dreams of having an adorable Asian baby were threatened by the less than perfect. Most recently there had been an increase of children being dumped onto Wakahisa whose parents had been incarcerated criminals at some point in life. That kind of history certainly didn't look good on paper. So all the blood, sweat and tears that went into caring for the children at Wakahisa went without reprieve or report; for Wakahisa had no public relations or marketing team like some charities did. There was no glory in volunteering at a place like Wakahisa.

It was the perfect place for Jubilee to hide.

"I'm not good with kids," she muttered under her breath to the angel on her first day. They were standing together in the small dining hall, awaiting the arrival of the children who would be awakening shortly. A couple other volunteers milled about, preparing food and straightening tables and chairs. Christine, the other American volunteer there who had debriefed her on everything, flashed her a quick and encouraging smile from across the room. Jubilee smiled back half-heartedly.

Is that so? said the angel, as if something about that were funny. We shall see about that.

Before Jubilee could ask what he meant, the doors burst open and children streamed into the hall. Jubilee's senses were suddenly assaulted by a series of bright colors and sensations that, while not altogether unpleasant, almost knocked her off her feet with their energy.

"What in the—" she began to murmur, when she felt the angel step up close behind her and lay a hand over her head. Her senses stabilized for a moment, and the otherworldly colors, sounds and smells became bearable. She gazed steadily at the children coming into the room to line up and get their food.

About a fifth of them had stopped to stare at her, their eyes big. They nudged and prodded each other, whispering and pointing. Jubilee shifted her feet uncomfortably. What were they looking at? Didn't they get new volunteers all the time?

One of them, a little girl who looked no older than five, was stepping out of the crowd of children to approach her. She stopped at Jubilee's feet and stared up at her with wide, wondering eyes. Then her little face broke out into a grin.

"Hi," she said, addressing Jubilee in Japanese.

"Um," said Jubilee. This was weird. "Hi."

"What's your name?"

"Jub—" Jubilee stopped herself. "Julie. I'm Miss Julie."

"I'm Meirin. I'm four."

"Nice to meet you, Meirin."

Meirin took a moment to cock her head at Jubilee, taking her in. "Miss Julie," she began, "Are you an angel?"

What? Jubilee was at a loss for words. "I—I—" she stuttered. Was this mockery? A common greeting in Japan? Behind her, though she couldn't see him, she sensed the angel laughing quietly.

"No," she said, managing to compose herself at last. "Why?"

"Because you glow like one, Miss Julie."

Jubilee looked down at herself. There was indeed a soft glow, thanks to the angel's close proximity behind her. His light enveloped her entire body and radiated out from the both of them. But this should have been visible to no one else's eyes but hers.

Jubilee glanced discreetly in the direction of the other adult volunteers, before murmuring, "You can see it?"

"Why wouldn't I? We all saw it," said Meirin, indicating the small group of children behind her with a stubby finger. Then she put her hands on her hips. "If you're not really an angel, then why do you glow like that? You are one, aren't you? I'm telling."

She turned and was about to run off but Jubilee grabbed her.

"No!" said Jubilee. "That is—I, well…" She sighed and knelt down to be eye level with the little girl. Why did kids have to be such brats?

To Meirin, she said quietly, "Can you keep a secret?"

Meirin's eyes lit up and she nodded her head furiously, in a surefire sign that she couldn't and wouldn't. "I'm the best at secrets," she said. Above her head, a thick, black line appeared and snapped in two.

"You're lying," said Jubilee.

Meirin's expression turned into a terrible pout. "Am not!" she said. "How do you know?"

"I just know. Now, I can't tell you until you promise to keep it a secret, and truly mean it."

Meirin's lips settled into a line of displeasure, but she slowly nodded. This time, the line above her head stayed intact.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Alright," said Jubilee, and leaned forward to whisper in the little girl's ear. "I'm not an angel. But there is an angel with me." She leaned back.

"Oh," said the little girl thoughtfully. She tilted her head in a moment of contemplation, before nodding. "Sometimes the other grown-ups look like they're glowing too. Especially Miss Christine. But just kind of sort of, and not all the time. Not like the way you do." She regarded Jubilee with large, inquisitive eyes. "Why?"

"…I don't know."

"Do they have angels with them too?"

"Probably." Jubilee shrugged. Then, remembering something the angel had said to her before, she added, "I think everyone has an angel with them."

"Then why don't I see everyone glowing all the time?"

"I don't know," Jubilee said again. Why did kids have to ask so many questions?

"Are you and your angel here to take care of us, Miss Julie?"

Jubilee looked at the little girl. Something in her vision shifted and she suddenly saw past the skin, the hair, and the eyes. She saw something inside the girl's core, small but writhing and growing slowly.

She started with the realization of a sudden knowledge that she didn't know how she knew. Meirin had terminal leukemia.

Her heart flooded abruptly with an insurmountable compassion that went beyond her own and, inexplicably, confusingly, she felt like she would cry. In that moment, with tears at the threshold of her vision, the world suddenly brimmed over with an unimaginable, otherworldly clarity.

She looked around her and truly saw everyone for the first time. The little boy who had lost his leg in a farming accident, and then was abandoned in the countryside because he'd become a burden that his parents could no longer afford to feed. The infant in one volunteer's arms who had been left on Wakahisa's doorstep not only because she was female, but also because, even worse, her eyes drooped with an unseemly deformity. The children filling the room suddenly filled her entire mind's eye with their past pains and their future hopes, their dreams and their fears.

If not for the strength that she felt flowing into her from the angel's touch that was still upon her head, she thought she might have collapsed from the overwhelming weight of it all.

She turned her gaze back to Merin, still standing in front of her. The little girl radiated a soft, gentle light that quavered timidly before her own, aimlessly seeking a place where it could shine without being snuffed out. Meirin looked up at her, waiting for the answer to her question, waiting for something more than what she was asking.

"Yes," said Jubilee, and was only a little surprised to find that she truly meant it.

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In the months to come, Jubilee became a favorite of the children for her uncanny ability to know exactly how they wanted to play, exactly what they needed when they were in pain, and exactly what to say when they were afraid.

She felt rather undeserving of their adoration. After all, it wasn't by her own natural abilities that she was doing so well with them.

Would you prefer to get by on your own merit? the angel had asked her one day, discerning her thoughts as usual.

Jubilee grimaced. God knew where that had gotten her in the past few years.

"No thanks," she'd told him.

Not to say that the work was easy. Jubilee may have suddenly become gifted in calming a screaming child, but that didn't bypass the screaming that had to come first. There were still dirty diapers to change, hungry mouths to feed, temper tantrums to quell, and chaos to dispel and discipline into some semblance of order.

"How can you stand it all?" she complained to Christine one day during naptime, after a particularly arduous morning and the majority of the children had finally, blessedly fallen asleep. The few older children who remained awake were coloring quietly in a corner. Jubilee plopped down in a chair across from the other American woman, who looked not much older than her. "Oh, that's right," Jubilee answered herself. "You're not fulltime. Guess having a couple days to recharge from all the insanity helps, huh?" Days were sometimes so busy that they flew by in a blur of lessons and chores and chasing children, and Jubilee was hard-pressed to be aware of anything else around her, much less the other volunteers.

The other woman just smiled a sweet and serene smile in the direction of the children napping at the other end of the room. "I suppose so," she said, rather humbly Jubilee thought. If she'd met her a few years earlier, Jubilee might have hated her. Christine clearly loved children and was a natural with them. Despite not having any supernatural ability that Jubilee was aware of, she got on just as well with the children as Jubilee did, but without breaking a sweat or hitting her head against a wall every now and then like she did. Here was a woman who did get by on her own merit. Even if Jubilee couldn't see the dazzlingly bright glow that frequently emanated from her, she would have been sure of that.

"It's not by my own merit, though," said Christine suddenly, as if reading Jubilee's thoughts. Jubilee nearly jumped. "Getting through all the work. I think you know what I mean."

Jubilee narrowed her eyes at the other woman, as if that would somehow help her read her mind better. "What do you mean?" she asked. Does she see too…like I do?

Beside her, her angel smiled, but said nothing to answer her thoughts.

Christine shrugged. "I talk to him too," she said simply.

Jubilee glanced surreptitiously at her angel for a moment. "Talk to who?"

"Dad."

Jubilee stared at the other woman for a moment, not comprehending.

Christine laughed lightly. "Sorry, that's just what I call him sometimes. In my head. I've noticed you talk to him too."

Jubilee continued to stare at Christine in confusion, and the angel sighed from beside her.

The Father, child, he said at last. She's talking about the Father.

A radiant image of an indiscernible face, brimming over with light and love, surfaced from somewhere in the recesses of her memory.

"Oh," she said at last. Crap, she thought to herself. She'd been caught talking to herself out loud.

Except that she wasn't talking to herself, was she? She was talking to Hellenos. She was talking to that voice that wasn't an audible voice, that feeling of a Presence that sometimes whispered through her heart, most often right before her vision was opened to another level. And here was somebody else who actually understood that.

Jubilee adjusted her seat, taking a moment to compose her thoughts before speaking again. "Why do you call him that?" she asked at last.

Christine shrugged again. Somehow it didn't come off as rude or apathetic on her. "That's what he is like, to me." There was another pause as Jubilee struggled to think of how to respond, before Christine suddenly grinned and said, "I think he told me about you coming here."

This took Christine by surprise. Then again, this whole year had been one full of surprises. "Um, what?" she asked, wishing that one of these days she would start becoming more eloquent.

Christine leaned forward excitedly and took Jubilee's hand like they were friends on a coffee date. "I've been praying for someone to come on fulltime, to take my place when I have to leave after the summer—"

"After you what?" Jubilee felt panic rise within herself before she could fully process what the other girl was saying.

"And then I had this dream one night, about…about an ancient people—Israel, I think. They were celebrating a new year but this one was special because they'd had all their debts erased…not sure what that part was all about, but anyway, then there was this woman there with them, along with all of the children here, and she was taking care of them. And there were a few other people there that I didn't recognize; some children who weren't Japanese, and also a man who was very pale. Hmm." She paused for a moment, as though thinking, before she laughed. "Okay, that sounded kind of convoluted, but the thing is, when I woke up I was just certain that someone was being sent to us, don't ask me how I knew. And now, here you are!" She gestured at Christine, as thought to say, Ta-da!

Jubilee's mind spun with conflicting thoughts. She didn't know which to address first. "You're—you're leaving?" was what she finally settled on.

"Yes," said Christine. "I only come and volunteer during the summer."

"But…but you can't leave! I can hardly keep up as it is, I'm going to die without you here!" Jubilee sounded frantic.

Christine laughed. "Oh Julie, you don't give yourself enough credit."

"Why can't you stay?" Jubilee heard herself ask, aware that she was getting desperate and being unreasonable. "What do you have to go back to the states for anyway?"

Christine's cheeks took on a rosy hue as her smile grew wider. "I'm getting married."

Jubilee deflated. "Oh." She crossed her arms and slumped in her chair, feeling defeated. After a moment's silence, she managed at last, "What are you doing here then?" The question was worded somewhat callously, but right now Jubilee didn't care.

The other girl didn't seem to take offense. "Haru, my fiancé, is Japanese. We come to visit his family during the summer."

"Huh," said Jubilee, still sounding dejected. "That's nice."

Christine laid a hand on Jubilee's shoulder. "Don't be discouraged or dismayed, Jubilee. Dad is with you wherever you go." She flashed her an encouraging smile, as she did so often. "You'll be alright."

Jubilee remained silent for a while longer, almost sullenly, but somehow Christine's words made her feel better, though they would have sounded empty and hollow coming from someone else.

"It's a year of Jubilee, that you dreamed," she said at last.

"What?"

"Your dream of the Israelites. What they were celebrating…it was a Jubilee year."

Christine snapped her fingers. "That's right! I thought it seemed like something I've read before." Then she tapped her chin in thought. "Wonder what it means though?"

Jubilee stared at the floor and did not reply.