He does not say, as he so often has, Do not be afraid.

   There is no need to quell fear, for she is as innocent to fear as she is all other things.

   Today he has simply come to comfort, to impart images and sounds which she will later know as something called déjà vu; the already seen. It is an apt name, he thinks, for the feeling.

   He gives her the ringing of bells.

   The soft sound of chimes in an Autumn breeze.

   The rustle of leaves in Spring trees.

   The sound of instruments, a violin, a cello, the softness of woodwinds, the hard beat of drums.

   He tells her that stars sing, that grass sings, that the world vibrates with her Father's praise.

   He gives her the thunderous sight and sound of a thousand hooves on barren lands, the noise of a fast-approaching train and its strident whistle. He gives her the vibrations of these things in the soles of her feet.

   He shows her the face of her mother, lambent with the life she carries within her. He knows this image is her favorite, despite the many wonders she has already seen, felt and heard.

   Her father; and it is a joy to him as well that in these dying days there is one for her to see.

   He shows her their beginnings, they, too, in warm rose-colored wombs, heeding the things which he had shown them. He goes back farther, to her grandparents, her great-grandparents, until she has seen her lineage back to the garden.

   Though sins were committed, he tells her, you must not forget those from whom you came. And now he does remind her not to fear, as fear will come later:

   For sins, he says, may be forgiven.

   Forgiveness, he says, is love. All things which your Father commands stem from love.

   He says that her blessings will be many. That nothing is to be taken for granted. That mistakes are to be learned from and never repeated.

   But he does not speak of pain.

   He does not utter warnings.

   There is time and time and time, and today was for comfort.

   So for now he leaves her, wrapped in the warmth and the glow of love and of knowledge, and he seals it inside her with a kiss to the place where the ridges of her bones will not, for some time, meet. This place will glow like a brand for days.

   There will be time for other things, he says, so

(hush)

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Author guidance for This story

"See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you, that their angels in heaven continually behold the face of My Father who is in heaven."

Matt 18:10

updated Oct 23 '09 by Eldritch