Ignatius’ mother had described God as a kind and loving Heavenly Father who created the earth and all good things in it, and who had sent us poor humans down here to be tested. Heavenly Father missed us terribly, and wanted to be reunited with us some day, but only if we could pass the tests He had sent down to us, to prove that we too were capable of loving others more than ourselves, just as He loves us.

Ignatius’ mother loved Jesus with a special fervor. Jesus was God showing us how to live as a human. She had placed portraits of him in every room of the house. In Ignatius’ bedroom she had placed a picture of baby Jesus lying in his manger, surrounded by oxen and goats and Mary and Joseph sitting beside him. In the dining room, there was a portrait of Jesus kneeling beside a rock, clasping his hands in prayer and gazing pleadingly up toward heaven. In the front hallway hung a picture of Jesus knocking forlornly at a door, and the words, “I stand at the door and knock.” In the living room, there was a picture of his face looking calmly out of the portrait. Ignatius always used to feel that no matter where you went, if you looked at that portrait it seemed like Jesus was staring right back at you. The paintings were all still there, even now that she was dead.

Now that Ignatius had met Samael, three pictures had become his favorites. The first was in the hallway leading up the stairs, showing Jesus hovering above the clouds, with a sunrise behind him and surrounded by angels whose wings were unfurled and who held raised trumpets to their lips, with the words, “He shall come again.” In his parents’ bedroom was a picture of Jesus almost naked, looking emaciated and weak, and an angel kneeling behind him, propping up Jesus’ head on his lap and holding a cup of water to his lips, while other angels surrounded him and held him up, with the words, “Angels came and ministered unto him.” There was only one picture about Jesus without Jesus actually in it, and it was Ignatius’ favorite. It showed a handsome young angel hovering in Jesus’ empty tomb, greeting three women with the words, “Be not afraid: He is not here, for he is risen.”

Ignatius had deduced that the portraits of winged angels dressed in white were figurative. He had dreams, though, of Samael with wings. They stretched out wide like the wings of an eagle. In his dreams, Samael was always larger than man-sized, draped in flowing robes the color of a starless night, his skin luminous and the color of marble, his snowy hair cascading down to below his shoulders. In life Samael looked like an old man, but Ignatius knew him capable of moving quickly enough not to be seen, unhindered by ordinary limits of time and space. Perhaps Samael could assume any shape he chose. It took a while for Ignatius to get up the courage to ask Samael questions about the other world. But one day he finally asked: “What is Heaven really like?”

The old man raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Haven’t you already read about it in the Bible? Listened to it preached in the Sacrament of the Word? Heard it sung in hymns?”

“I know none of that can possibly be true.”

“Perceptive boy!” replied Samael, “But I cannot describe it to you in words that would be much truer than those you have already heard.”

They sat, watching the clouds frozen in the sky, Ignatius thinking.

“But you can show me, can’t you?”

The old man said more coolly, “That is a daring request.”

“I want to know.”

Samael fell quiet for so long Ignatius thought he would ignore the question. Grownups didn’t seem to have to answer questions. Pastor Whitmore didn’t. His father certainly didn’t.

Samael whispered, “Let me ask you a question first.”

Ignatius nodded.

“How do you know that I am an angel?”

Ignatius was puzzled by the question at first, but then answered without too much thinking, “You told me so!”

“How do you know that I was not lying?”

Ignatius opened his mouth and then stopped.

“It just seemed to me that....” He paused for a moment. An icy shadow passed over Samael’s face as they stared into one another’s eyes. Tears welled up in Ignatius’ eyes. “I asked you if you were an angel and you said ‘Yes, I am.’”

“Or what if I told you,” continued Samael, none of the coolness dissipating, “that I only said ‘yes’ because ‘angel’ is the closest thing to what I am of what you know, but that nothing of what you know of angels is true?”

“Then I would want to know what you really are!” There was anger rising in Ignatius’ voice, a fierceness that startled him.

“Even if I am really a monster?” Ignatius saw a flash of something like lightning in Samael’s eyes, and for just one moment he appeared to Ignatius not old, but timeless.

Ignatius wiped his face with his sleeve, all the time keeping Samael’s eyes in his own. “You’re not a monster.”

“You do not know what I am.”

“I want answers to my questions!”

Samael smiled and placed his hand on Ignatius’ head.