TC84

Jashen and Jael and Gabriel and Dory had all seen Michael in Kemen. Gabriel and Jael had even seen Belphegor, who was one in a long series of humans possessed by Shemhazai. Sophia was not their first sight of a seraph by any means. Doriel with her talent was frequently the mouthpiece of Sophia, but sha but had never laid eyes on her before. Dory was staring at the girl because sha was finally able to put a face to the voice.

Jael was staring at a girl who looked like a cousin hy never knew hy had.

But this was Ariel’s first encounter with the human avatar of a living star and she wondered at the new emotions that seemed to accompany that. Sophia knew El set things up that way long ago and didn’t think it was rude. She turned to Ariel and said, “My father goes by Benjamin Margolies now, and my mother by Edith, but they are really Joshua and Miriam Lange. I’m your little sister, Ariel, and now we finally meet!”

Jael continued to study Sophia, but suddenly for a different reason.

She said, “You’re thinking of Momma Mary’s double Zed sex chromosomes, and how Pop is human which makes him X Y. That means, if I truly am your sister, that I should be elyonim like you and Ariel: X Zed or Y Zed.”

“How did you guess?” asked Jael. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking!”

“Academy trained,” Ariel said, immensely proud of her brother, as usual.

Sophia said, “Think back to the camp where you were held prisoner until so very recently. Remember how you went on a sort of a strike? No ordinary person could have pulled that off. You enjoy a certain level of control over your own mind. That is part of the standard toolkit of any one of the B’nei Elohim, of course, but I take it a bit further. The changes go far beyond the brain and nervous system in my case. I have a degree of control over the shape and function of any part of my body.”

“And you’ve chosen the form of a twelve year old British schoolgirl.”

“Well, I am a twelve year old British schoolgirl, as it happens, and I am also the result of an experiment. When El joined with Avram to become Michael he had Avram’s willing participation, of course, but Avram was already about as old as you are, Jael, with a fully-formed personality. Michael could not help but read elements of that personally that back onto El, simply by existing. Indra fears this contamination, she has never taken possession of a human. Shemhazai and Belial go full tilt the other way, they has possessed many humans serially, from almost the very beginning. In my case I waited until the historical situation was ripe and I took possession of a baby when she was still in Miriam’s womb, before she had any experiences or a distinct personality at all.”

“Michael and El are distinct,” Jashen said, “but when we speak with you we’re speaking directly with Binah because there never was a distinction. You’re the pure stuff!”

“Exactly. And also the moral question of consent never came up.”

“I see you don’t have the standard-issue halo,” Ariel said.

“Ah, yes. El insisted his servants have a visible mark to set them apart. That can pass in Kemen or even here in America, where it can be explained away as a cultural thing, some sort of native head adornment, but in Old Blighty, in the public school system, it simply would not do.”

“So why are you and my real mother and father living in Old Blighty?” asked Jael, mildly annoyed at Sophia’s implication that he and Ariel had been left behind solely on the account of their inexplicable halo-horns.