Dearest Heavenly Father,

We lost the last Vuelda child today. We were giving her the tour -walked her through Creation, showed her the wonder of Your spirit and the joy of Your work, and were just getting to Your Son's sacrifice when she said that word.

"So?" she said, "Why did my friends and I have to die? I want to hear his answer. Why?"

And because the soul remembers everything when it passes through St. Peter's Gates, Esperanza already knew the answer. She was quicker than most, an old soul not easily swayed by our usual platitudes. I began explaining that your ways are mysterious, and she stomped on my foot.

"I want to hear it from him. If he's got time to watch over a sparrow, he's got time to answer me." I looked at my brothers. One was actually smirking.

"That's it, isn't it?" said the child. "He's not here, is he? He's ashamed to admit to his mistakes. The Great All-Father wants us to destroy everything, so he doesn't have to own up to his errors in judgement. He'd rather have children die than make adults more sensible. He'd rather our bodies were blown apart than snap his fingers and make all the weapons of death and destruction, owned by stupid, stupid scared or angry bad men disappear."

I patiently explained your great gift of free will to mankind, and only mankind; how the course and fate of Earth had always been up to them, but she wasn't buying into it. In fact, she got rather upset. She went so far as to question your gift. Forgive her, Father. She's only six. Physically. Her soul had regained its memory, and she didn't like what it knew. I don't blame her, really.

"You say we're the only ones he gave free will to? C'mon! You and all the angels have free will!"

At that point, the seraphim screamed, and the cherubim began to bawl. But she didn't stop blaspheming you there – oh, no. She kept going.

"You can't fool me into believing that he made all of you angels without brains! You don't seem stupid to me. Certainly, he gave Lucifer free will, hmm? But you know what I think? I think God never showed you any thanks or tell you how proud of you he was – the way any good dad would. He never saw you as his children – I bet he's treated you like slaves. So, to taunt him, your brother tempted us with the thing we wanted most of all – knowledge – the forbidden fruit. Brains. Know-how. Reason and logic. Independence. And we fell for it."

I started to respond, but this young girl was on a roll. "Did it ever occur to you, Raquel..."

"Raguel," I corrected her.

"Whatever. Did it ever occur to you that the all-knowing God knew what was going to happen? Because if so, he did a great acting job of being surprised and pissed off. He set us up, just to throw us out of Eden. He abandoned us. He rejected us! Well, I reject him!"

And of course, she plummeted to earth, landing in an alleyway. We watched as she stood up and walked away, and when her wings fell off, her body dissipated into atoms, and joined him, your favorite angel - wherever it is he went, or you sent him.

The wings stayed behind, however. I didn't have the heart or the inclination to pick them up and destroy them. Chamuel went wherever he goes when he wants to weep. I returned to heaven, to give Michael the bad news. Do you know what he did? Of course, you do. He waved me away and went back to sharpening his sword. We both know he can't wait to use it.

Love forever, your creation,

Raguel

My name is Raguel, the seventh and last Archangel. Well...we used to be seven – which, I assure you, was intentional on God's part. He made men have a fascination with odd numbers – 1,3,5,7 and 9. One true God, Three aspects of God, Five points in a devil's star, Seven Archangels, and Nine circles of Hell. Honestly, there were more Archangels than just seven, but we don't talk about the Fallen much.

You've been led to believe, I'm sad to say, that God knows everything past, present, and future. He doesn't. The Universe was lonely, and God awoke, shall we say, with a Bang. The Universe doesn't speak, which is unfortunate, because God took that as permission to do whatever he wanted. Which he did. Not always with great success or finesse, I'll have you know.

If you've ever watched a human child play with clay for the first time, you'll have a good idea of the divine disasters that occurred during his many first attempts with proto matter. Lots of lumpy, bumpy planets. Finger-shaped ones. Matter covered things that were better left alone – and so we have black holes and their antitheses, white holes. And God sometimes ate the things he'd made. What resulted were planets...gas giants, as you call them.

If you think God was human shaped at the beginning, think again. He was, Universe forgive me, very like a mass of pink astral poo. The whole humanoid shape was arrived at billions and billions of years in the future. Life didn't begin by arriving on a comet's tail or locked inside a meteorite. They added to what had already been sprinkled about. Life began when God sneezed.

Sometimes worlds developed life all on their own, which fascinated the young deity, and he'd study them for millennia at a time. They also pissed him off, because he'd had no part in their creation, so he'd ultimately stomp about and destroy them. Why did he stomp them out, instead of just thinking them into nothingness? Damned if I know.

Eventually God chose a planetary system that was fresh and green and bursting with life. Oh, no, it wasn't your galaxy. That came later. This one already had intelligent life. And they did not take his descent from on high, proclaiming his omnipotence and demanding fealty, very well. Long story short, they told him to piss off. And he did, after making their sun hiccup.

He'd learned a few things by then. When he stumbled upon Earth, God - being male - made Adam. The planet itself responded – annoyed at this unwanted intrusion - and made Lilith. Because Adam needed a companion, and preferably one who could procreate. But the best laid plans of gods and planets can go awry. Adam, like his dad, wanted a servant. Lilith, like her mother, wanted an equal partner. Adam brandished his maleness rather pitifully, and Lilith walked away disappointed. Their first hundred or so children, Earth's true children, she took with her and they became the stuff of pagan legends.

God, thinking he could do better, thought he'd foolproof his first female creation by making her out of a piece of Adam himself. That what followed – the apple being eaten and the whole Eden setup - that idea the Vuelda child brought up, has been a big bone of contention amongst my siblings since the beginning. We knew it was a promise the humans could never keep.

Michael has always held to the fact that because it was Lucifer who set the Fall in motion by tempting Eve in the first place, everything that happened afterwards was his fault. But I don't buy into that any more than Chamuel does. It was God who showed them that all of Eden was theirs, and they could consume whatever they wanted – all except an apple. Nothing exotic, like a carambola, kiwi or a mango – a boring, mundane apple.

That's like parents telling their children not to masturbate – it's bad because they say so. Except it isn't. You know it, their friends know it, and if the kid has already done it, they know it absolutely feels good. I don't speak from experience because angels don't have genitalia. Thanks a lot Father, by the way.

So, why would an apple be any different? That apple didn't just close the door to Eden – it opened a hole from which escaped angelic faith. When Lucifer left – or was banished, conquered, humiliated - none of us were quite sure what transpired. Well, none of them. I'm the Watcher, so I saw. Why, Father, why? That's the word he hates...has always hated. What I want to know is, why did the three-in-one (or one-in-three) leave? And where did they go?

The letters? They were Gabriel's idea. He thought it was best for us all if we poured our non-existent hearts out every day, and he'd canvas a corner of the universe and throw them into space, knowing that if Dad was out there, somehow the letters would find him. Daily letters quickly lapsed into monthly letters. I think he does it because it gives him something to do. He's Heaven's Postmaster, after all.

Which brings me to this moment in time, the week after all those children were massacred in Texas. Michael, Chamuel and I have been looking after mankind all by ourselves for over 150 years. That's less than a microscopic drop of water in a microscopic cup of eternity. But we've never been without the presence of our Heavenly Father for more than a few years. There has been no communication, no signs; no verified prophets proclaiming in his name.

We'd watched in dismay as one by one, the other archangels vanished – some without so much as a goodbye. Delicate Jophiel went first, saying there was less and less wisdom and beauty in the world. Raphael followed, weeping that a world so in need of healing wouldn't even lift a finger to heal those most in need of it.

Uriel left, freeing the demons still under his watch, saying that man had created much more fearsome creatures on their own using 'free will' or by misinterpreting scripture to suit their own prejudices. Last of all was Gabriel, who gave his trumpet to Michael, and issued forth a cry so full of sorrow we feared it would crack the barrier between heaven and earth. When we uncovered our ears and opened our eyes, he was gone.

When Vuelda was beset, we three who remain made the Vow: that should none of those poor souls who pass into Heaven choose to stay and become angels, we would leave, close St. Peter's Gate forever behind us, and go searching for our Father. And our last hope had just rejected heaven. I went in search of Chamuel.

Being the Archangel of Love and Comfort, he would likely be somewhere which offered those things. In happier, less violent times, children would usually appear at the gates in their pajamas and clutching a stuffed animal. The ones who moved on, becoming cherubim, would often gift him with what they had brought. The Vuelda girl, Esperanza, had thrown hers at him.

Picking it up, I whispered in its ear, "Take me to Chamuel."