Life settled back into its quiet state over the next couple of days.

Zeke would walk to the bus stop with his stepbrother in the morning; they started their regular conversations with AJ on the bus as soon as she hopped on and then continued the conversation later during lunch and then during the bus ride home.

Zeke would head straight to the library after school to study as usual, except this time, he was studying up on mythical creatures and their physiology in a library inside of a medieval occult hospital.

He added a marker, rag, and a small plastic bottle spray to his medical bag, entering the hospital with the others via vacant classrooms in the school building once the coast was clear. He’d draw the sigil and then clean off the mark before closing the door. Another odd thing was the fact that Ugo would tag along to study.

Ugo focused on learning magic, and Zeke pondered on the biology of the mystical — hoping to learn what Naomi might be. That was the deal they made. Zeke collected books from shelves inscribed with symbols resembling constellations, from shelves with demonic marks, and shelves with harmless whimsical-looking insignias.

From the constellation shelf, he deciphered the horrible handwriting and learned that angels occupying Containers don’t need to eat, sleep, or drink. The demonic sigil shelf showed him illustrations of monstrosities with names below them he feared reading out loud, and even in his head. It mentioned that demons, unlike angels, take part in reproduction often, generating armies of abominable offsprings. The whimsical shelf gave him books that taught him about fairy allergies, skin infections exclusive to satyrs, and special bacterial infections leprechauns get from harvesting too much gold.

Sometimes, AJ would come and read a bit alongside them — grabbing whatever book with the least terrifying imagery, but spent most of her time in the hospital with Naomi in her patient room. Sometimes, Zeke entered to keep AJ company as she hopelessly chipped away at Naomi’s flaccid lies. Replying ‘I don’t know’ at every single question flung at her while she nestled in the tattered bedsheets playing on Ugo’s backup phone, giggling blissfully. Ugo privileged her with charged power banks every time they’d visit the hospital. Naomi never went through the anguish of having your device die right in the middle of a high-stakes puzzle game. Naomi would answer even before AJ could finish the question. By now, Zeke had already explained to Ugo and AJ everything that Violet told him, so AJ was understandably furious and was always the first to storm out of the hospital on her own.

They discovered that when opening the front door with the sigil cleaned off, a black barrier would appear in the doorway, not allowing anything through. When the sigil was drawn on the door again, they could walk back into the halls of Winterford High School. A few times, they’d have awkward encounters with custodians on their way back, but in overall the system was viable.

When nighttime came along, Zeke enjoyed dinner with his family, enduring his mother’s overly spiced food and his stepdad’s exaggerated stories about the escapades of running a dentist’s office. During these days, his mother responded better to the outrageous tales and bursted out laughing one time that petrified Gerardo for a full minute.

Later on, Zeke would retreat to his shared bedroom with Ugo. He sat by his desk, reading a book taken from the eclectic library. Ugo would lounge on his bed analyzing the book that gave them the life-saving sigil. They read in silence, unaware of the time passing and not allowing anything to disrupt the halcyon quiet. Some nights, Ugo would meditate or hum an old chant that sounded like Catalan.

Maintaining their concentration even when Eldora’s elated giggles permeated through the walls well into midnight. Zeke tried not to imagine what the giggles meant, nor did he for the titters and squeaks. He was glad he never heard a sound he could undoubtedly register as an endearing moan.

On Thursday, everything was following the wonted pattern until lunch. Ugo ditched Zeke at the cafeteria line and left him alone to collect a rubbery mess of lasagna alongside a dose of salty browning corn, a pretzel that looked like they made out of plastic and an orange juice box.

He navigated through the crowded cafeteria, catching whiffs of all kinds of smells — good and bad, from adolescent stink and just plain sweat to jasmine and orange blossom scents. Zeke staggered and then reclaimed his balance when the smells suddenly mixed in a certain area, like he was a plane left disoriented from flying into an air pocket. He circled around tables of cliques he had no business interacting with, he even glimpsed at Raylan and his poorly hygienic entourage at one table that still attracted a flock of cute girls somehow, he stared until Raylan looked in his direction and he veered away from the table.

He found his group seated at a table on the far left of the room next to a ketchup stained wall. Zeke plopped down in his seat and looked at the two.

AJ was chomping on a low-calorie apple turkey sandwich with a homemade pomegranate juice in a bottle. There’s no way she would punish her body with greasy, most-definitely life-threatening cafeteria food.

And Ugo had nothing. He was sinking back in his chair, staring at the ceiling with a vacant face.

“Mora, you’re not going to eat?” Zeke asked.

“I am fasting,” Ugo responded, and crossed his arms.

AJ placed her sandwich back in the tupperware and gave Ugo a look. “Why are you trying to lose weight? You’re a toothpick. If you lose anymore, you’ll just disappear,” AJ said, “you should put on muscle, not lose it.”

“This isn’t related to trying to impress a girl, if you were wondering,” Ugo said. “I am working on my Mana.”

Zeke and AJ raised their brows.

“Fasting can help build Mana,” he cleared up. “According to the Vieja’s book. I stared into flames, tried to sing some ancient songs I found on the internet, and meditated while visualizing the tree of life, but that’s going nowhere.”

Zeke remembered his grandmother’s lesson on Kabbalah. Ancient Jewish mysticism that explored divine fundamentals about the universe. The concept of the Tree of Life — Sefirot came from Kabbalists who believed that the essence of God can be found in every human and through Sefirot that essence can be unlocked and true knowledge can be obtained, and with that knowledge the strongest connection with God can be achieved. His grandmother illustrated the Tree of Life for him once — ten circles interconnected with twenty-two beams. The circles representing human attributes and the beams representing the paths one will encounter throughout their life. Since magic was a way of channeling and rivaling the powers of the Almighty, magicians would study the Tree and visualize it whenever trying to use magic.

“Well, I hope something happens,” Zeke said. He ripped off the straw behind the juice box, removed it from its plastic, and tried poking the straw into the hole with little success.

“I don’t know about that. Magic in the hands of Ugo…” AJ squinted at Ugo. “I don’t like it.” AJ turned back to Zeke and took the juice box and straw away from him. “So, is Naomi just going to live in the hospital now?” She stabbed the straw into the hole with one quick movement and extended the juice box back to Zeke.

Zeke looked at the box, chagrined, and grabbed it. “The moment she steps outside, Nananiel will show up and take her away and Vee said we shouldn’t do that.” He sipped his orange juice.

“Right. Vee said that she isn’t an angel. I can’t stop thinking about it.” AJ grabbed her bottle and twisted the cap off. “What looks, feels, and speaks like an angel but isn’t?”

“For me, that’s any supermodel you put in a bikini and attach a pair of wings to her back,” Ugo said.

“Thank you for your useful and insightful commentary, Ugo,” AJ said, and gulped down her juice.

Ugo smiled and said, “Anytime.” He pulled himself up in the seat and leaned forward. “Let’s talk about the hospital.” Ugo stroked his chin. “That place is some medieval hospital that deals with occult shiz, right? Then, let’s go with it!”

Zeke grabbed his plastic fork and used it to peel the top layer of the lasagna and studied the inside as if he were dissecting it. “What do you mean?” He asked.

“Let’s get the whole place up and running again, Mano. Let’s publicly reopen the hospital of mysticism!”

“What is it, a department store? Do you know what you’re saying, Mora?” Zeke pulled the fork back.

“Mano, we’re part of the Generation of Healers. We’re meant for crap like this. We’ll deal with illnesses coming from the occult! There’re probably many people out in the world suffering with a disease they do not know how to treat. That no ordinary doctor can treat. You’ll be the head of the hospital, okay? The general doctor—, Internist—, or whatever. Look, you’ll be the guy who identifies the disease, comes up with the solution and then tells me where to cut. I will be the head surgeon at the hospital! And AJ…” Ugo looked at AJ and his face went blank.

AJ lowered the bottle from her lips and held his blank stare.

“Uh… we’ll come up with something for you,” Ugo said.

AJ curled her lip to the side. “Hm… I don’t like it,” she said. “The idea of you touching random people and messing around with their… bodies.”

“You’re referring to women, aren’t you?” Ugo said. “Look, I would be morally obligated to operate on anybody, female or not. If you have a problem with it, then complain to the universe for choosing me.”

“Oh, no, no, no. You only get to operate on males,” AJ said.

“Like hell I am! If so, I’ll let them all die!”

“Mora…” Zeke said.

Ugo looked back at Zeke. “I’m joking.”

“No, you’re not.”

“No, I’m not.” Ugo stopped to think for a moment and then slammed the table. “You’ve been studying up on mythical creatures anyway, so what’s the problem here, Mano?”

“I am trying to figure out what Naomi is, remember?” Zeke cut off a piece of the lasagna with his fork, shoveled it into his mouth, and grimaced. It tasted like cardboard with cheese and unseasoned tomato sauce.

Ugo explained, “It’s not just people who get sick, y’know. Angels are real, demons are real, magic is real. What else could your grandmother be right about? Unicorns, fairies, werewolves, vampires, succubi… mermaids… catgirls—”

AJ scowled at him as he giggled lecherously. “Please, stop,” she said in an exhausted tone.

Ugo stopped and put on a stern look. “All those monsters are real and are in those books that you are reading. Books that helped us save Naomi,” he said. “She is an example that any creature is susceptible to a disease. So, we’ll admit and treat any creature with any disease!”

Zeke swallowed his food. “Humans alone already have a myriad of diseases,” he said despondently. “Can you imagine how many diseases every other creature could have?”

“We’ll learn how to treat every one of them! Again, you are already doing that!”

“Ugo,” AJ said, “you realize it takes more than three people to run a hospital, right?” AJ grabbed another bite from her sandwich.

“Then, we’ll be a clinic.” Ugo said. “And as time goes on, we can recruit more people.”

“Like, other people of the Tainted Generation?” AJ asked, covering her mouth as she chewed.

“Yeah, maybe, I don’t know. We’ll get interns or something.” Ugo’s eyes popped out as he let out a gasp. “Nurses! Dude! Nurses! We can hire nurses!” He smiled so wide it looked painful.

“What person would be crazy enough to be a nurse in that place?” Zeke said and then shoveled more of the lasagna in his mouth, forcing himself to swallow the cardboard.

“You’re right! They don’t necessarily have to be a person! I can see it now. Catgirl nurses! People and creatures would get sick on purpose just to get admitted into our clinic.” Ugo stopped for a moment and then added, “Look, you and AJ always seemed to be sure of what you wanted to do with your lives. Zeke into medicine, and AJ something related to health and fitness. But not me…”

Zeke glared at Ugo. He didn’t mean to, but it was a nasty glare. He said, “With your memory and brain, you can get any job—“

“I don’t want a boring desk job, Mano! Every job I could think of just bored me, but this, this, this sounds awesome.” Ugo smiled once again. “The head surgeon of a clinic of the occult.”

Zeke pushed the tray away, admitting defeat. “What should we name it?” He asked.

They all exchanged looks with each other.

Nobody had an answer. The bell rang.

###

The trio decided not to find an empty classroom door to enter the hospital, at Ugo’s request, to focus on attempting to perform a spell. AJ announced she had some chores to get done at home and promised to show up at their house later on.

As soon as Zeke and Ugo entered the American colonial, Ugo ran up the stairs and stopped halfway. He turned back to Zeke and said, “Don’t come up to the room, okay?”

“What?”

“I’m going to meditate.”

Zeke gave Ugo a look. “Meditate? Ugo, I’ve been living with you for ten years now. I know what that is code for. Can’t you do that tomorrow? I want to take a nap.”

“Dude, what is wrong with you? It is literal meditation. You know what I’ve been doing for the last couple of days, come on!”

“You never denied me access to our room before.” Zeke stopped to wince at the comment. It sounded like they were a bickering couple. Zeke waved his hand, letting it be. He removed his backpack and tossed it to Ugo, he caught it. “Just take that to the room, please.”

Ugo glanced at the medical bag in Zeke’s hand. “And the bag?”

Zeke clenched the handles of the bag in his hand and raised it. “This stays with me at all times. You never know when a medical emergency will come up.”

“Sure,” Ugo muttered.

They heard an explosion of laughter erupt from another room that caught them off guard for a moment. It was most likely Eldora in the kitchen. They shared a look.

“Má is still in a really good mood.”

“Looks like it.” Zeke pursed his lips and started walking.

As he entered the living room, he heard Ugo running up the steps and Eldora’s laughter from the kitchen rising. He dropped into the smoke grey cotton couch, allowing his medical bag to drop to the floor and stared at the black screen of the flat-screen before him, wondering if attempting to nap would even be possible.

The exhaustion in his squishy muscles and bones begged him to at least try. He put little effort into closing his heavy eyelids and keeping them shut. As Eldora’s laughter finally seized, Zeke felt he could let the dream world claim him. He tried to wash out the thoughts and imagery of creatures of myth and legends and focus on something that would truly calm him. An image of Violet materialized. Fourteen-year-old Violet clad in a striped shirt, a knit cardigan over it, black jeans, and sneakers. Standing in an empty classroom, staring blankly back at him. The classroom ceiling's lights partially blinding him and shining over her like a spotlight.

‘Let me think about it,’ is what she said before disappearing from the classroom entirely.

Disappearing off to Buenos Aires. Leaving him in limbo for three full years without a clear answer.

“Ezequias! Ugo!” he heard his mother’s voice shout.

Zeke opened his eyes, and he was back in the living room. He heard Eldora laugh hysterically. How long was he asleep?

“Was that you who came in?” She slurred through her words. “Or was that you, my love, Gerardo? Did you come early to see me? I have a funny story to share with you!”

The laughter became maniacal, followed by violent wet coughs.

Zeke rose from the chair and walked to the kitchen door. He pushed the door back and announced, “It was just us, Mom...” Zeke paused.

A steamy fog filled the room and Eldora was on the floor, laughing hysterically, with her back against the oven door — all loopy and dazed.

Zeke engaged immediately; he dashed to the windows and opened them up. He turned off the stove and looked into the only pot there. It was boiling just water with some amount of it left.

He kneeled to a cackling Eldora and touched her shoulder, studying her with concern. “Mom?” he said in a feeble, shaky voice.

“The funniest thing happened to me, Ezequias.” Eldora raised her hands.

They were encased in stone. Zeke stared wide-eyed in horror.

Eldora convulsed with laughter as she looked at her lapidified hands, petrified in an upright position as if she were about to make a prayer. Zeke noticed his mother’s eyes glistening and reddening as tears profusely ran down her bloated cheeks.

“What will you do now, heathen?”

Zeke froze after hearing the silvery voice that came from neither him nor his laughing mother. He scanned the kitchen slowly and kept his mind sharp and attentive.

“You know who I am, Ezequias Rosario,” the silvery voice said.

Zeke’s eyes stopped on the baby angel refrigerator magnet and perused it. The magnet sparkled a white light for a moment. He stood up.

“There you go.” The magnet didn’t move, but Zeke could tell that Nananiel’s voice was coming from it.

“How are you doing this?”

“Angels have many ways to communicate with humans. We’re quite creative when it comes to that,” Nananiel said. “I believe I didn’t have time to properly introduce myself. I am Nananiel—”

“A Dominion. You’re in charge of every Realm below Heaven, I know.” Zeke pointed at Eldora. “D-D-Did you do this?”

“Yes,” Nananiel answered immediately.

“Why?”

“You know why heathen.” Nananiel said. “Naomi! I know you’re hiding her in a location with a strong warding against angels. Remove her from that secluded Realm at once and return her to me!”

Zeke stayed quiet and looked back at Eldora, who slammed onto the floor on her back and writhed and laughed.

“After that Hellspawn associate of yours impeded my interrogation, I did whatever I could to cling onto the memory of your face. The faces of the Tainted Generation are difficult for us to remember, but I managed long enough to draw it down, and I showed it to everybody in Winterberry. I searched this entire city for everything related to you. People recognized you. From there collecting data was easy, Ezequias Rosario.”

Zeke stared back at the baby angel magnet and trembled.

“Did you think what she did was going to keep me away for long? That party trick of hers was just a pale imitation of the real thing. Irin is a hundred times more powerful than my abstract memory of hers! You of the Tainted Generation think that you are more powerful than angels? Arrogance will get you all killed!”

“So, you went after my mother?”

“Eldora Morata. She’s quite a devotee. Prays almost every night.”

“This is how you treat believers?”

“This is about you, Ezequias Rosario.” Nananiel hissed.

“What exactly did you do to my mother?”

“It’s a curse. That’s all I will say.”

“You’re despicable. You call yourself an angel?”

“You took something that is property of Heaven!”

Zeke paused for a moment. He knew that the most important part was just not giving up on Naomi. But he had to learn what she was. He had to try. His curiosity was killing him.

“What is Naomi? Tell me!”

“You do not need to know. You have no right.”

“Then, I am not going to hand her over to you assholes.”

“Then, enjoy your mother’s funeral.”

A cold nail swept down Zeke’s spine. He staggered back onto the counter and grabbed its edges. He let out quick gasps of panic as he stared at the magnet that remained quiet.

Eldora started coughing again and ejected globs of spit onto the floor. Zeke ran out of the kitchen.

As Zeke ran across the living room mumbling hysterically in Spanish like a wailing elderly Latina, Ugo rushed down the stairs.

“What’s all that shouting about?” Ugo screamed.

Zeke leaped over the coffee table and grabbed his medical bag. He rushed back to the kitchen door. Ugo ran after him.

Zeke bolted into the kitchen and slid down to Eldora. He opened his bag and pulled out the marker. The door swung open and Ugo stepped in. He halted when he saw Eldora and his face went pale. “Má?” he uttered.

Zeke took Eldora in his arms and tossed the marker to Ugo. He caught it.

“What the hell is going on?” Ugo shouted.

Zeke stood up with Eldora, blasting laughter right into his ears, and shot a dead serious look at Ugo. “This isn’t the time to be in shock! We need to move now!” he demanded urgently. “Now, draw the damn symbol!”