A New Family Unit

Heaven. The name of the village was Heaven. He must have been dead, but why didn't he feel dead. And Gabe, Gabe was still warm to his touch… Wait a minute, why was Gabriel warm? It was freezing, snowing and Gabriel was wearing nothing more than he had been when he left, yet he was warm in Jonas's arms. There wasn't any way they could be alive after all they'd been through and yet here they were in the village. People were milling around, he hadn't seen them from the top of the hill. They were everywhere. Why hadn't he seen them before? They didn't seem to notice him.

"Hello," he said, "Hello can you hear me? I'm right here, over here, look, me, I'm the boy with the little baby in his arms." Nobody even turned to look at him, and then all of a sudden they started pointing at him or more at Gabe.

"Look he's new, How do you think he escaped his community? He's just a baby," said a lady wearing a tattered old coat and a turquoise scarf.

"He must have had help, an accomplice, somebody who saw the wrong in our societies and loved him enough to bring him with him," shouted out another woman this one wearing sparkly pink earmuffs. Earmuffs Jonas had never seen these things before but he automatically knew what to call them, like in the Giver's memories.

"Do you think his accomplice may not have accepted his death yet?" suggested a man who looked quite close to the lady with the scarf.

"Probably, I mean the baby's too young to understand any of this so he would just automatically accept his death because he doesn't understand what death is," replied the earmuff woman.

"But how long would it take? For the baby to "accept" it, I mean. He could have been dead for years and his accomplice just won't accept his death. We've never had a baby escape to heaven before," pointed out the scarf woman.

"Well he's here and that's all we know for now, so I guess we had best take care of him," Said a grandmotherly woman rather firmly. The next thing Jonas knew there were at least ten people all trying to take Gabe from him at once.

"NO!" Jonas shouted and all the people jumped back.

"Who are you?" asked a young girl about Jonas's age.

"I'm Jonas." Jonas replied.

"Well you and your lovely little brother had better come with us." said the grandmotherly like woman taking the hand of the girl who had questioned Jonas.

Jonas followed, shocked into silence. "Where am I," he wanted to ask. "Why am I here? What's all this talk about accepting my death? How did you know I escaped from my community? Did all of you escape too? Is this Elsewhere? A bit of a funny name for it, "Heaven" what did it even mean?" Jonas thought briefly. He shook his head clearing it of all those silly questions.

Gabe began to laugh quietly Jonas's arms. Well, Jonas thought, even if he had no idea where he was, wasn't keeping Gabe alive the reason that he had brought him on this journey? So therefore whatever was going on here it meant that he had got Gabe what he had intended for him even if the journey was painful. Now Gabe can live a happy complete life. Jonas smiled without realizing it. That boy had become a larger part of his life than he liked to admit.

"Jonas, Jonas"

"What!?" Jonas shook himself and looked up. They had reached a little cottage nothing like the ones in his community. It was made of red brick with a chimney sticking out of the top, smoke wafting from it. The words just came to Jonas, red bricks, chimneys, smoke. Jonas had no idea what they were but now all of a sudden he did and it felt as though he had known all of his life.

The grandmotherly woman motioned for Jonas to enter the house. The inside was just as Jonas had suspected, cozy and clean. They had entered into a kitchen, it had a small island in the middle made of dark wood and the smell of freshly baked pie enough to overwhelm anyone.

The grandmotherly woman addressed the girl, "Why don't you go take the baby and set up the guest room for them, I need to speak to this young man," she said gently. The girl took Gabe from Jonas and exited the room. Jonas turned to the grandmotherly woman and cocked his head.

"I'm Adelaide, and we need to talk," she began, "but first, what is your name? And what is the name of the baby?"

"I'm Jonas and he's Gabriel" Jonas said, too confused to say anything more.

"Okay Jonas, well why don't you come sit down in here," Adelaide said motioning to the room nextdoor. It was a pretty room Jonas thought, with flowers in vases, nice paintings on the walls and overstuffed armchairs in the middle. Jonas sat on the one closest to the door and Adelaide on the one opposite him.

"Do you have any ideas why you only appeared when we tried to take young Gabriel away from you?" Adelaide asked.

"No," Jonas replied, "do you?"

"Know? No. But I do have theories. Did you know that to appear you have to accept your death?"

"No. I remember you mentioning something about accepting my death but I did not understand why… Death? Death? Accepting my death? Does this mean that I am dead then? I haven't reached Elsewhere, I failed and died on the way. That means that I failed Gabe. I tried to protect him with my life but I failed and in the process I killed him?"

"No." Adelaide stated firmly, "you have reached Elsewhere, it is just not how you expected it to be. And as for whether you failed Gabe. Never, he will be much happier here than anywhere else you could have taken him."

"Alright..." Jonas said not really understanding.

"Let me try to explain," Adelaide started again, "You escaped your community, traveled miles avoiding searching groups growing weaker and weaker until you reached the top of a cold snowy mountain and found a strangely familiar red sledge. You climbed onto the sledge and started down the hill. Halfway down you lost consciousness and when you awoke you found yourself invisible in Heaven center."

"How did you know that?!" Jonas asked in alarm.

"Because the same is true for everybody else here."

"What!? but I've never seen any of you at home!?" Jonas said the last word with a slight hesitation, was it really his home or was home with the people who loved you. His parents didn't love him, they had said so, or just as good as.

"We come from many other communities each one as sick as the first," Adelaide explained.

"Okay?..." Jonas said beginning to understand, "so there are many communities out there, all who have issues, and everyone here has escaped from their community to find here, which is really Elsewhere, even though it's nothing like I thought it would be." Even as he said that last part, Jonas began to think, how different really was it from what he had imagined? It was a place where everyone was just as different as he was, people seemed to have different explanations for the same things, opinions, and though Jonas was still different he was the same because of it.

"Yes, Yes" Adelaide said excitedly.

"But what I still don't understand is all this talk about accepting our death."

"Well what is there to understand? We are all dead here, we died on our way here and because we had accepted that we would do whatever it would take to get here we found the sledge."

"So I found the sledge after I died then?" Jonas queried.

"Yes, then you rode it down the hill to "Heaven."

"Okay…? But you still haven't explained why I need to accept that I'm dead and why you were all talking about it."

"Well, you cannot be seen by the other people in Heaven until you accept that you are dead. Gabe did so unconsciously because he is too young to understand the concept of death. You did so when we tried to take Gabe from you."

"I don't remember ever accepting my death."

"Yes but something you said earlier gave me an idea, You said, "That means that I failed Gabe. I tried to protect him with my life but I failed and in the process I killed him?". You pretty much admitted that you would do anything for Gabe."

"I would," Jonas said still confused, "but what does that have to do with accepting my death?"

"I'm getting to that, at that moment the thing that you thought you had to do for Gabe was to stay with him, to do that you would have to accept your death. Your unconscious mind accepted your death so that you could stay with Gabriel. Do you understand?"

"Yes"Jonas said beginning to smile, "Yes, I do"

"Grandma! Grandma!" Shouted the girl who had walked with them, bursting into the room, "The little baby is so cute, can he stay with us and him" She motioned to Jonas.

"It's alright with me, but you should probably check with Jonas" Adelaide said fondly.

"Would you like to live with us here?" The girl asked more shyly, "I'm Lily by the way"

"Jonas looked at the girl and took in everything about her, her untidy hair and her super enthusiastic nature. "Yes" He said, "That would be, really nice."

"Well then come along Lily-billy we had best go and make a celebratory dinner, I'm sure Jonas and Gabe are starving" Adelaide said, and left the room.

Jonas just stared after the retreating figures that phrase bouncing around in his head.

Lily-Billy