How I Know

I’ve always had a fascination with the idea of guardian angels. A magical, omnipresent being that protects us from harm, who wouldn’t want that?

How I Know is not the first time I explored the idea in a short story. One of my earliest stories, Over the Top, is about a soldier who meets a similar figure while fighting in the trenches of World War II.

With How I Know, the root of the idea, the chewy bit, comes from Newton’s Third Law: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In a world where guardian angels are real, would there not be an opposing force? One meant not to lead us on a path to avoid the pitfalls of life, but inch you toward the steps that will see you fall right into them? An anti-angel of sorts.

Writing How I Know while traversing Central Europe by train.

With that thought, How I Know began.

Reading over it now, I wrote most of it in 2011, I know I bit off way more than I can chew with the plot. But that’s okay. What is fiction writing if not repeated lessons in risk-taking?

This story will always hold a special place in my head (I know I say that about every short story) because I wrote most of it in the midst of a once in a life-time trip with my brother Daniel (fun fact, he designed the cover art) across Europe. Scrawled with a Uniball on a pad of graph paper while riding our EuroRail pass from Denmark to Germany to Austria, Italy, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Perhaps a piece of me was hoping I had an angel sitting on my shoulder.

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Cover by Backpack Studios

Well, here it goes, the last story I will ever write. As an author of fiction, it feels almost liberating to finally write a true story, and it just so happens, it’s my own.

Walking through the doors of my town’s high school, standing at a whopping four-foot six inches, I realized how much had changed. Everything was bigger. The doors, the halls, even the kids were bigger. Except they weren’t kids anymore. There were boys with full moustaches and girls with long legs below their short skirts and tits that actually filled the bras they wore. These older girls were much different than the pig-tailed, scraped-kneed ones I was used to back at Forest Glen Elementary. 

I quickly realized I wasn’t much like the other boys at Forest Glen Collegiate. While they were interested in sports and the score of last night’s hockey game, I was more interested in the plant and animal life in the forest behind the school. While they traded tips and strategies on how to beat the latest video game, I was solving crossword puzzles from the daily newspaper. And while they spent their free time chasing tail and getting girlfriends, I spent mine with my nose in a book, analyzing character motives and plot sequences with the school librarian Ms. Gibbs. It was for these reasons, among other things, that kept me from making too many friends those first couple years. It didn’t bother me though. While some kids were loners by force, pushed to the lowest link in the high school food chain, I was a loner by choice. I wasn’t even part of the food chain. I existed independently, in my own little bubble, which was fine by me. Nobody was shoving my head down a toilet, or making me nudge nickels down the hall with my nose to try and change it. I was happy.

Well, I was happy, until I met Elizabeth Becker.

Beth Becker was a year older and in the grade above me. However, due to budget cuts and the increasing number of students, Forest Glen Collegiate introduced the “split class”. Basically, one teacher was assigned to teach a class of two different grades. In my case it was a Grade 9-10 split mathematics class. For this reason, the gods of Forest Glen, or Mr. Henry, our principal, and the school board made my fate by placing me in the same class as Beth.

As I’ve said, characters, plots, settings, themes and metaphors were my forte, and as I’m sure any right brained student will tell you, math was a foreign language. I was no different. With one parent as a photographer and another as a journalist, I didn’t really stand a chance. Math just wasn’t in my genes. So I don’t think you can fault me for having J.K. Rowling or Tom Clancy propped up behind my math textbook. 

It was on that first day of school that I first laid eyes on Beth Becker. Only a passing glance in the hallway, but it wasn’t until a couple days later, and our first class together that I first talked to her. She sat in the column of desks on the opposite side of the room. Conversation was impossible. Staring was not. She had long brown hair that was always pulled back in a ponytail and green eyes that had a sheen like the look of fresh spring grass in the morning sun. A cute round face held it all together. Maybe a typical Grade 12 girl to anyone else, but to me, she was a goddess.

No teenage boy confronted with the dilemma of talking to a cute girl for the first time will think any less of me for never striking up a conversation. It was impossible! She was cute, I was awkward. She was older and popular, I was the young outcast. The high school food chain dictated that ours was a romance that would never be.

I would have to be Superman. 

After that first day in class with her I spent many nights thinking of ways I could start conversations. I would need to appear calm and cool, the smart younger guy who had no problem approaching the older females. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I just wasn’t that guy. I’d never even had a girlfriend. However, my fate would have it that only a few weeks after that first class, I wouldn’t need to take the initiative.

Our math class had just been assigned new seats and again, fate would have it, Beth and I were assigned seats right next to each other. During that first class beside her, my hands were so shaky that I could barely turn the pages of my book. It was dark in the room as Mr. Bruester was giving a lecture about parabolas on the overhead projector. Her whisper almost sent me jumping from my seat.

“Which one is it?” the soft, hushed voice inquired. Turning, I could see the glow from the projector shining in her green eyes. Her brown hair seemed to glimmer in the dim light. I stammered to find something to say, some answer that would make me sound both witty and smart.

“Whi-which question?” I asked. I thanked the gods for the lights being off as I could feel my cheeks and neck flushing to the colour of a ripe apple.

“Not the math,” she whispered back with a smile. “Which Harry Potter is it?” She had propped an elbow on her desk, placing a hand over her mouth. At the front, the shadow of Mr. Bruester’s nose moved across the blank chalkboard like a massive storm cloud. Some wit had affectionately given Mr. Bruester the moniker of Bulbbous-Nosed Bruester. 

I remember the sweat forming in the small of my back. It felt like someone had slit open the back of my neck and dumped scalding water down my spine. The hairs on my neck became stiff. My stomach was fluttering as if a bird on ecstasy were trapped in there. I was a wreck.

“Oh, uh, it’s the fifth,” I whispered back. The students around us were beginning to turn and glare.

“Nice,” she said, picking up her pencil and pretending to jot something in her notebook. “I’ve read the series twice.”

“Me too!” I blurted. I mean, blurted.

Silence descended over the class. I remember the only thing I could hear was the occasional sniffle from some sick kid and the pounding of my heart. 

I can remember Mr. Bruester staring at me over his nose, which looked like he was wearing a permanent clown nose.

“You got the same answer did you, Peter?” he asked. The light from the projector cast a childish campfire glow over his face.

“Yes sir,” I responded, not sure what I was answering to. Beside me I could see Beth trying to contain her laughter, practically vibrating with the effort.

“Good work,” he said, saluting me with a marker. Then the class settled back under the drone of Mr. Bruester’s voice. From beside me, Beth whispered one word. One word that not only led to what happened between us, but one word that set me on the path to where I am now, sitting in my empty house, too scared to leave and writing about old high school crushes. 

“Cute,” she said, then turned and smiled at me, and that was it.

I was in love.

Up until that point, math class had been a dreaded experience, an hour and twenty minutes where I would hide a book or crossword behind my propped up textbook. After that day however, math soon became my favorite time of the day. This didn’t stop me from hiding things behind my book, but it allowed me to share these things with someone. Share them with someone who actually cared. I felt as if all my dreams had come true. She loved books, she did crosswords, she was beautiful, she acknowledged my existence. It was too good to be true. 

After only a few weeks of us talking I was planning our future together. How many kids we were going to have (two), where we would live (house in the country). I thought about early mornings and late nights spent with her, vacations we would take together, even what type of furniture we would have in our house. Every time I started drifting into these thoughts it was like a trance, something would take hold of my mind and allow me to sift through all the possibilities without interruption. I would snap from these trances both excited and nervous, the hairs on my neck standing up and my body covered in sweat. I thought about all these things and I hadn’t even asked her on a date. All we had done was whisper back and forth for a few months about books, her favorite being To Kill a Mockingbird, and she helped me with a couple crosswords. We did this by passing scraps of paper back and forth which I scrawled hints on and she would hand it back with a couple possible answers. I hadn’t even heard her voice above a whisper for Christ’s sake, but I was in love. 

To this day I will tell you the same thing because I know that it was love. 

“You were so young!” You may say to me.

Ahh, but you see, I have an ace in the hole. I knew I was in love because I was told that. I was told I was meant to fall in love with her. Can you believe that?

It’s partly why I’m so damned scared at this moment. I’ve had to retype this paragraph about six times because my hands are shaking so badly. I still have time though. I want to doubt what I know is true, but even in the short time it has taken to recall all these memories I am becoming more and more sure that what I saw was real.

I’m crying now. Deep breaths Pete, get through it, you need to get this all out.

Yes, so I was in love with her, even before having seen her outside of math class.

For weeks, I had tried to work up the courage to ask her out, trying to think of a clever way to do it. I had even asked the librarian. Ms. Gibbs had loved me from the minute I walked into the library. Asking me about what book I was currently reading, and always suggesting something to read next. It was like we had exactly the same tastes in books because every book she gave me, I loved. It went the other way too. I would suggest books for her to read and she would come in the next day with the book already half read. In her office, a small square room with books piled floor to ceiling against the walls we would host our debates. She taught me most of what I knew about analyzing plots. Searching for reasons why authors put certain events before others in a story, why we only see certain parts of a character’s past, and other such ideas. Basically, Ms. Gibbs taught me that in a story, there is never coincidence. The author always has a reason, whether big or small, for putting things in the order they are.

It wasn’t always quiet lessons. After studying on my own I was able to carry on a steady, logical debate with her. Each time we landed ourselves in one of these arguments, usually during my lunch hour, she would always lean back in her wooden chair, padded with a homemade, flower patterned cushion and smile at me. Her arms would always be folded across her chest and she would wait quietly for me to say my piece, then give her rebuttal, which usually quashed any argument I made.

“Pete, the only romance you need at your age is that which you can get from these,” she said holding up a book. I laughed and said I would figure the Beth situation out on my own.

I finally decided that I would write the question on a scrap of paper, pretending it was a crossword clue, and hand it to her during math class.  I remember leaning over my desk, writing the words carefully to make sure she would be able to read it. Finishing up, I leaned back and noticed another scrap already sitting on the edge of my desk. I looked over at her, she wasn’t looking at me, but I could see she was smiling. With shaking hands, I opened the folded scrap.

Back steps. After school :)

B.

She turned that warm smile on me and I melted. I smiled back and nodded, letting her know that nothing was going to keep me from meeting her at those back stairs. I felt it was an odd spot to meet, as all the smokers and sketchy kids hung out there, but I didn’t care. She could have wanted to meet in hell and I would have showed. She looked over at me again and once more I nodded, she giggled as my head bobbed up and down.  I was in such a good mood that I actually put down the book I was reading, which just happened to be To Kill a Mockingbird, and tried to pay attention to what Mr. Bruester was saying at the front of the room. When the bell rang to end the class, I started to pack up my books, smiling all the while. I always have trouble cramming everything back into my bag due to multiple crumpled crosswords and assorted books which litter the inside. Beth stood from her seat as I managed to fit my math text back into my bag.

“See you later,” she said, her voice soft and melodic to my ears.

“See you later,” I replied. My voice was clear and stutter-free and my confidence soared. Then, with a swish of her brown hair, she was gone. I stood up in a daze. My legs were jelly and my stomach was once again spinning like an out of control washing machine. I also had that weird nervous feeling that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It was like that odd feeling you get when someone is watching you. I headed for the front of the class, walking between two rows of desks. When I was only a few paces from the open door, only a few stragglers were left in the room, and as I made to step into the hall, Mr. Bruester’s voice cut into my dazed mind.

“Peter,” he called, “may I have a word please?”

“Yes?” I asked.

“Well Peter, I’m sorry but you’re going to have to report to detention at the end of the day.” My heart turned to ice and dropped into my stomach, like an icicle falling from the eaves. He had both hands planted on his desk, his dark eyes, along with his nose, staring at me.

“What for?” I asked, dropping my eyes to the floor. I didn’t argue, knowing perfectly well that I was caught. I was only curious to know which of my activities had gotten me in trouble so I could better cover it up next time. Also, I needed to get out of there and find Beth before she reached her next class. Math was our second last class of the day and if I didn’t find her then, I wouldn’t get another chance to let her know what happened. She would probably laugh. I pictured that beautiful smile of hers. I hoped she would call me cute again.

“Well, this slip came as a surprise to me,” he said, flipping over a small pink piece of paper on his desk. “As far as I’m concerned you’re an exceptional student, Peter.” It took some effort to contain my snicker. “But the detention isn’t from me.” I lifted my gaze from the floor.

“What?”

“Apparently you were a little loud in the library this morning.”

“What?” I said, louder this time. The library? I had not set foot in there that day. I opened my mouth to speak, my eyes locked with Mr. Bruester’s.

“But Mr. Bruester, there’s gotta be some kind of mistake.” He held up a hand in attempt to silence me. “I haven’t been in the library tod-”

“Peter, Peter, Peter,” he said, cutting me off. “You know what they always say,” my mouth hung open in astonishment. “Don’t shoot the messenger.” I glared at him, and he dropped his eyes back down to his desk. “You can take it up with Ms. Gibbs tomorrow in the library if you wish.” He was barely finished before I was racing out the open door, dodging students arriving for their last period with Bulbous-Nosed Bruester. Not even half-way down the main hall I realized finding Beth was a lost cause. There was only one minute until the bell would go to start last period and she was probably already sitting in her classroom. Not wanting to receive any further detentions, I released a defeated sigh, tears threatening close behind it, and moved my feet in the direction of my last class. And my luck would have it that it was also the room in which end of the day detention was held in.

Perfect.

Looking back at it now, I know all my worrying and restless thinking was in vain. All the muffled fist poundings and self-deprecation was for nothing. I would never have to explain myself to Beth because I would actually never see her again. 

I found out at school the next day. Beth had died in a car crash. They announced it over the PA system in the morning. Elizabeth Becker, along with two other boys I didn’t know, were traveling east on the highway when their car veered into the oncoming lane and collided with a semi-truck. All three were killed instantly. The principal was the voice behind the bad news. When he finished, he made known to students that all of the school’s guidance councillors were also trained in grief counseling. He then asked for a moment of silence.

I almost threw up. 

All morning my nerves had been jumping like open circuits. I had been up half the night thinking about our next encounter. I had looked for her first thing when I got to school, but obviously couldn’t find her. I’ll also mention that I stopped at the library to ask Ms. Gibbs just what the heck had happened yesterday, but I couldn’t find her either. One of the assistants told me she called in sick.

After leaving the library I had headed to my homeroom, and received the news. 

Dead. Gone. Erased. Goodbye. See ya never. Adios. 

I couldn’t believe it. During the moment of silence, my brain attempted to turn over the news it had just received, but every time it got to the, “Beth is dead” part, it seemed to cease like a broken engine. When the moment was over, our home room teacher started to remind us to use our guidance councillors, but I didn’t hear. My brain may have been slipping gears, but my limbs were definitely working. Before I knew what I was doing I was out of my seat and heading for the door, with my backpack. My teacher said something to me as I headed for the door but I was too out of it to hear. 

To this day, I can not explain why I walked to the forest. I knew I was going to cry my eyes out, and I guess my brain figured a dark, covered place would be good to do it. I think it’s just instinctual for creatures to retire to a dark, safe place when they have wounds that need to be licked. Safe and covered, like a child pulling a blanket over their face after a nightmare.

Coverage. I needed coverage.

So I headed for the forest behind the school. Known for being the hangout of drugged out teens, gangs and vandals, it was a space usually avoided during school hours. Now, however, I didn’t care, and walked straight past the back steps and into the dark embrace of the woods. I disregarded the gravel path and headed straight into the thick brush, pushing aside low hanging branches, and making sure not to roll my ankle on a stray beer bottle. I pushed my way toward the middle of the dense brush. After about five minutes I spotted a fallen tree. It was an ancient piece of wood that had recently been cut down by the city, proven by the spray-painted orange X on its side facing the sky. In its descent it had crushed down a thin column of the thick green brush, which used to grow at its feet. It was a perfect spot. I hauled myself out of the bush surrounding me and into the thin clearing atop the downed tree. I sat down, placed my bag into my lap, and let loose.

I cried for nearly twenty minutes straight.

I was heart broken. Even thinking back on it now, sixty years later, well sixty years as of tomorrow, I can still feel an echo of that pain. The aching sickness in my stomach at the thought of never seeing her again. The pain in my chest which made it seem like my heart was laboring through each beat. And the thoughts. The helpless sadness that follows the realization that she is really gone. The devil sitting on your shoulder telling you nothing will ever be the same again. You won’t be the same, your life won’t be the same, you will never find someone like her again. 

Then the worst part.

I had no other thoughts to distract me from the pain. Previously, I used thoughts of Beth to replace any bad things rummaging around in my brain. Now, thoughts of her only made things worse. To this day, there has never come a time in my life when I felt more completely, utterly, extremely and undeniably alone, then I did that day sitting on the fallen tree in the forest.

Following the twenty minutes of sobbing, I spent another ten minutes sniffling and gasping for breath. I also remember removing the flannel shirt I had on because the arms were soaked with tears. It was during this reprieve that I realized something.

I wasn’t alone in the forest.

I didn’t hear anyone. Other then the sounds of the trees groaning in the wind, and the occasional chirp of an insect, I could hear nothing else. No voices or footfalls, nothing to suggest any other human being was there. I obviously couldn’t see anyone either. Behind me, the large fallen tree was a column of brown ridged wood ending in a twisted mess of thick roots. A chill slithered its way down my spine. The hairs on the back of my neck spiked up in awareness. There were no stimuli to my senses to say anyone, or anything, was around, but I knew something was there. It was in the bushes, watching me.

I twisted around, trying to look through the blackness between the hanging leaves for any sign of movement. I was unsure of how to react. The crying had drained me. All of my emotions seeping in liquid form from my eyes. I felt no sadness, or anger, or even fear. I was numb. I didn’t even react when a hand appeared between the thick roots at the end of the tree.

The hand, appearing very white among the dark, dirt covered roots, squirmed through the air like that of a reenacted corpse pushing out of its grave, then stopped. It twitched to the side and gripped one of the roots. The brush surrounding the end of the tree began to shake. I only stared, feeling absolutely nothing, waiting for whatever it was to appear. The leaves crackled and hissed against each other then another hand appeared, then a pair of forearms, the top of a head, shoulders, and an upper body. Flopped among the roots like a fish caught in a net, the head looked up and I made eye contact with the person. A woman. A very familiar woman.

“Christ,” she gasped. “I wish you would have chosen a better spot to do this Pete.” 

Of all the things I had expected to appear in the woods at this time, the librarian Ms. Gibbs was not one of them.

Ms. Gibbs struggled her way through the thick roots. They caught in her hair and tore at her clothes like clinging cricket legs. I made to get up from where I sat, placing my backpack onto the tree behind me, but she stopped me by holding up a hand. It was the same way she always quieted me during our lunch debates in her office. 

“I may be getting old Pete,” she said with a smile. One that pushed up the wrinkles around her mouth, which actually made her appear younger. The wrinkles created by her smile appeared like dimples instead of marks of age. “But this is nothing I can’t handle.” Using her upper arms, she twisted, then jumped up through the roots landing in a crouch. I still could not speak. I was stunned into silence at the sight of her. Why was the high school librarian here in the forest with me?  However, what she did next broke my paralysis. She took two steps toward me, she had a thick scarf wrapped around her neck and her jeans were stained with dirt. Sitting down next to me, her legs dangling off the edge of the massive log, she wrapped her arms around me. I was so shocked at first that all of my muscles tensed in surprise. She must have felt it, but she didn’t let go. Then I relaxed, and as if her arms were a trigger, I started to cry again. She soothed me, rubbing my back, telling me it wasn’t my fault, and repeating over and over.

“I’m sorry Pete, I’m so sorry.”

I didn’t cry for as long as my first breakdown, but it was still close to ten minutes before I could pull myself together. The first time I opened my mouth to speak, I could only manage a low pitched groan. Pulling away from her, her scarf now wet with my tears, I coughed, literally choking on all the words trying to escape my mouth.

“Take it easy, Pete,” she said. “Take a breath.” So I did. 

“What are you doing here?” I asked, wiping tears from my swollen cheeks.

“Well, comforting you of course.” She was smiling at me, and I couldn’t help but laugh. 

“Alright,” I started again, “what brought you here to this exact place at this exact time?” It was her turn to laugh a little.

“A very good question, Peter,” she said, her eyes scanning through the trees. “One which has a very complicated answer.” She fell silent. Looking at her I saw the flicker of a tear in her eye before it was brushed away, quickly, with the back of her hand. I watched her and waited for her to continue. I then realized that something wasn’t right. Besides the obvious current situation, her showing up in such a random, out of the way place, there was something in her eye I had never seen before. They were wide and alert, scanning the gaps in the bushes. She was uneasy, and I once again got the feeling, like a cold snake slithering up my spine, that I was being watched. The hairs on the back of my neck became stiff.

“What is it?” I asked. Ms. Gibbs didn’t answer, she only continued to glance around, like she was looking for something, or watching out for something. Slowly, the feeling began to fade and the warmth returned to her eyes. With my brain no longer on high alert the questions came flooding back.

“How did you know I was here?” I asked again, already opening my mouth to ask another. 

“I just did,” she replied.

“You’re avoiding my questions,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “I’m just preparing myself. All this business is hard for an old gal.” I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

“Did you follow me here?” I asked, a hint of anger bubbling inside me. Ms. Gibbs was not one to avoid questions. 

“No,” she said.

“Then how did you know?”

“I told you,” she said. “I just knew.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked, beginning to get frustrated. 

“Language, Peter,” she snapped. “And keep your voice down, there is no reason to shout.” My jaw snapped shut. 

“Sorry,” I said.

“That’s alright,” she replied. “I’m sorry too.” I waited, somehow sensing that she had more to say. “You need to understand, Pete,” she began,  “my task here is near impossible and most likely you, and I, will both suffer for it.”

I didn’t know how to respond. In the time I had known her I had never heard her utter a word that wasn’t fact, or logically sound. I was getting scared.

“How did you know I was here?” I repeated. I was clinging to the question in hope that her response would return some normalcy to our conversation.

“I just knew that this was where you would come to mourn the death of Elizabeth.”  The mention of her name turned the contents of my stomach to ice cubes and I thought I may cry, or vomit, or both. Instead, I did neither and asked her once again.

“But how did you know? I mean- I didn’t even know I was coming here, I just came here. Spur of the moment decision. I didn’t talk to anyone so you couldn’t have found out that way. So you must have followed me,” I said. 

“I didn’t follow you here, Peter,” she repeated. At that point I was thoroughly frustrated.

“Then how the fuck are you here?” 

I regretted the curse immediately. She reacted like I had slapped her.

“I’m sorry, Pete,” she repeated. “I know you’re becoming frustrated with me.” I was glad not to hear any sadness in her voice, it regained her signature, matter-of-fact tone. It worried me that she was studying the trees again. After a minute she turned back to me and she was smiling. “Well, as the saying goes, there’s no time like the present time, right Pete?” I nodded. My knees were starting to ache from being crossed for so long. I uncrossed them, shifted on the rough bark of the log and allowed them to dangle beside hers. “Why don’t I start with your detention yesterday?”

“Yeah!” I exclaimed. Suddenly remembering the meaningless intrusion which kept me from meeting Beth the previous day. I opened my mouth to continue my outburst when I was struck by a thought. If I hadn’t gotten that detention and was able to meet Beth, she may not have gotten into that car. The idea filled me with sadness and a boiling rage. I think Ms. Gibbs saw the rage burning behind my eyes because she reacted immediately, but calmly.

“Pete, don’t you start thinking you could have saved her because you couldn’t have.” I guess she realized this didn’t help any and continued. “Meeting her at the steps like you were supposed to would have done nothing, she still would have gotten in that car.”

I didn’t at first register the fact that she somehow knew about our meeting at the back steps. The idea that I may have saved Beth’s life had consumed my mind, turning it into a black hole where only that single thought existed. 

“Now listen, Peter,” she said, holding up a hand to silence anything I may want to say. “There is absolutely nothing you could have done to save her, believe me, nothing. Because you were supposed to be in that car with her. You were suppose to die in that car with Elizabeth yesterday.”

I couldn’t speak. I stared at her, trying to keep eye contact as the world around us started to spin. I could feel my heart beating in my eyes as it jumped into high gear.

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump.

Black wings fluttered behind my eyes and I had to dig my finger nails into the soft flesh of my palms to keep from passing out. Ms. Gibbs reached for my shoulder, squeezing it. She tried to soothe me.

“It’s okay now, Pete,” she said. “You’re safe.” After she said that, the uneasy feeling ran through me, giving me the feeling a colony of ants were crawling over my skin. I jumped as something moved in the bushes before me. My eyes darted to the ground and I saw it was only my dangling feet rustling the low hanging leaves of the brush.

I looked over and found her already looking at me. I was unsure of whether to thank her for saving my life, or tell her she needed to get some help. Then, for the second time that day, I followed neither of my gut instincts and asked, “how do you know I was supposed to be with her yesterday?”

“Oh come on, Pete,” she said with a smile. “Everyone in school knows about you two. If Beth had told you that eating glass was a good for your teeth, you would have been the first in line to do so!”

I felt like this was a slight exaggeration, but I got her point.

“Okay,” I said. “But you’re still dodging my questions.” For the first time in what could have been twenty minutes, her smile disappeared.

“I know, Pete, and I don’t think I can dodge them any longer. But this is also where it gets much more difficult,” she said. Once again, she was scanning the bushes.

“More difficult than your cryptic replies already?” She smiled, but it was brief, replaced by that same look of unease.

She continued to stare at me before her face broke into her signature warm smile.

“Pete, I’m your guardian angel.”

In the silence that followed this statement the wind ripped through the brush surrounding us. I looked around in a daze and realized that something was wrong. The wind seemed to be coming from every direction. It was so strong and so loud that it immediately distracted me from the statement Ms. Gibbs had just made. I could see the leaves shifting and rising. From our perch on the fallen tree, our eye level was only a little below the top of the canopy of low growing brush. I watched as the leaves rose in a large hump, then rolled toward us. It was like waves rising and falling upon the shore. I immediately knew that this wasn’t wind. It was something coming nearer to us. Something closing in, and there was a lot of that something. I turned my head to look behind me and saw the same thing. Waves of green leaves rising in clumps and rolling forward, then receding, rolling forward, then receding.

“What is that, Ms. Gibbs?” I asked, my voice shaking.

“Don’t worry about them Pete, you’re safe.” I turned and looked at her with tears in my eyes. My body was vibrating with cold tremors and the hairs on my neck were stiff like frosted grass.

“Who are they?” I asked, pulling my legs back onto the log, an unconscious effort of self-preservation.

“That lack of knowledge is what’s keeping us safe,” she said, glancing around us. Her eyes had once again regained their warmth. She looked calm now.  I was far from calm. Every nerve in my body was jittering. All of them sending signals to my brain saying, “get us the hell out of here! This is not right!”  However, I trusted Ms. Gibbs. I took a deep breath, then another.

“What did you just say?” I asked her. She wasted no time in replying.

“You know what I said, Pete,” she paused, her eyes analyzing me. “It’s just like any other statement I’ve made during those times in my office. Analyze the context and respond.” I tried to think, but my fears were clouding my mind like thick fog. I could only think about whoever, or whatever, was out there surrounding us. I was sure that’s what they were doing. The waves coming from all around us. They were reverberating like ripples on still water after a rock has splashed through the surface, and Ms. Gibbs and I were the rock.

Ms. Gibbs waited for my response, her hands folded in her lap.

“I can’t, I don’t kn-” my words were choked in my throat as sobs racked my body.

“Easy, Peter,” she said, unfolding her hands and using one to rub my back. I heaved back the sobs and tried again.

“You’re, you’re my...” I paused, unable to speak the words. “No,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s impossible, that stuff is just,” I paused again, listening to the rippling in the leaves. “It’s impossible,” I repeated.

“I know,” she said, “but you need to believe me.” The tone of her voice burned guilt in my gut. She wasn’t just asking me to believe her, she was pleading.

She seemed to have aged ten years since she hopped onto the log, which had only been...I couldn’t even remember. It seemed as if I’d been sitting on that log for days.

“It is essential that you trust me on this, Peter,” she said, staring at me. “We don’t have much time here.”

“I don’t know...what...who...I can’t think.” My brain was on overdrive. Too many thoughts were trying to form themselves into words and sentences all at once and only mixed fragments made it out.  I suddenly felt like I was going to faint. Then one thought cleared the traffic jam in my mind, like a semi truck plowing through a pile up at 100 kilometers per hour. 

Beth Becker.

Her smiling face, the way her brown hair bobbed in her ponytail as she walked, her bright glowing eyes. 

Around us the trees continued to ripple, and it was getting dark. Despite the fact that it was not even noon hour, the large trees around us were turning grey in the fading light and the sun had disappeared from the gaps in the canopy above us, replaced with a dimness that was almost foggy. 

“How did you know about Beth?” I asked, pulling my knees into my chest and wrapping my arms around them. She looked at me with a warm smile.

“I need to get this out quick okay, Peter? Because we don’t have much time.”

We don’t have time. Why does she keep saying that? I asked myself.

I nodded again.

“Well Peter, two years ago I was in a car accident that nearly killed me,” She paused. “Well, I guess you can say it did kill me.”

I stared, waiting for more.

“I talked to one of the paramedics who was first on the scene a few months later and he told me he had never seen a person closer to death then I was after being pulled from my car.”

Suddenly the bushes before us exploded with movement. A violent wind seemed to be tearing its way through the leaves. The rustling sounded like someone crumpling crisp paper in front of a microphone. My heart was ripping through my chest. Its heavy thudding was painful and I could feel the blood pumping in my ears. My fingers and toes pulsed with each beat, and my spine felt as if someone was slowly inserting shards of glass between my vertebrae. I wanted to scream but couldn’t.

Then I saw the face.

And found my scream.

It appeared through the thick brush, pushing its way through like a corpse bobbing to the surface of a dirty lake. It looked like a man’s face, but stretched and distorted and it was pitch black. The colour inside sealed coffins and closed crypts. The colour of closets and the colour that creates screams in young children.

The face was a rounded inverted triangle. Long hair, as dark as the face itself, hung in sheets on either side. The creatures eyes glowed.  A brightness which seemed to suck all available light into it like a vacuum. I tried to look away but the thing’s eyes hooked into mine and I couldn’t. In its eyes I saw myself as I was only minutes before. Crying, broken and alone. Those eyes told me I would always be alone. They showed me white-haired and wrinkled laying in a coffin. It was my funeral, a funeral that nobody came to. The only person at my grave was a man in priest’s robes but his face was replaced by this one.

I continued to scream. The face loomed before us. Bobbing from me then to Ms. Gibbs who sat staring back at it, her hands still folded in her lap. When it turned back to me, the blackness where its mouth should have been, broke.

It was smiling.

A grin filled with sharp dagger teeth expanded over the contours of its face as black fluid dripped between them and then down onto the forest floor.

More thoughts spilled into my brain. Me crying alone in an empty dark room surrounded by these grinning faces, my crippled body laying at the bottom of a massive staircase. At the top stands this creature. The black fluid leaking from its leering face and cascading down the staircase like a waterfall and drowning me. 

Then Ms. Gibbs was screaming. Not in fear, but in anger.

The creature had been trying to force its way into our clearing. Black, clawed hands dripping that same fluid, had appeared and seemed to be trying to use the bush as an anchor to force its way through. It was struggling.

“You have no knowledge here!” Ms. Gibbs was screaming. “You know nothing!” You know NOTHING!” Her hair had fallen from its bun and was blowing in brown waves around her face. “Leave him be! You know nothing of this!” The creature disregarded her commands and continued to stare at me from its place in the bushes. Then my eardrums were violated with a high-pitched screech. My eardrums were in a vice that was slowly being cranked all the way in. My mouth was twisted in a scream, but I couldn’t hear if any sound was escaping. I looked to Ms. Gibbs, knowing she could stop this. She could make this monstrosity disappear. I blinked through the tears welling in my eyes, and then noticed Ms. Gibbs’ eyes.

They were filled with that same glow, but instead of sucking in the surrounding light to create it, this light came from inside her and was emitted in a bright, warm, glow.

My brain was once again filled with forced thoughts. Thoughts that pushed their way into my mind like police in riot gear forcing their way through a mob.

I saw myself as an adult, I was taller and my hair was shorter. The structure of my face had grown and changed into that of an attractive man. I was wearing a suit and beside me was a smiling woman in a white dress. Feelings for this unknown woman rushed into me. I loved her, and she loved me.

I then saw the same man sitting behind a wide table. Stacked on the table were copies of a book. My book. My name was on the cover. On the other side of the table hundreds of people were lined up waiting to shake my hand. All of them held copies of my book.

Then I was on a blanket in the middle of a park. My wife was there, her brown curls blowing in the same wind that sent yellow and orange leaves cartwheeling around us. On the blanket between us was a little girl with brown curls and blue eyes. My blue eyes. Our daughter.

Then it was over.

The forest and the clearing created by the fallen tree had returned and the beast had vanished. The only sound was that of my own and Ms. Gibbs ragged breathing. Then Ms. Gibbs continued as if nothing had happened.

“Peter, on the way to the hospital my heart stopped beating for almost two minutes before I was revived.” She looked at me and I saw her eyes had returned to normal. I couldn’t speak. I think she saw that and she continued.

“It was in that time that I became what I am now. Society today calls us guardian angels.”

My mind operated almost free of my conscious thought, I had no idea where the question came from before it was forming in my mouth and being spoken.

“So God talked to you?” I asked. With that out, my head throbbed from the previous violations and it was now pulsing with questions.

“No,” she said. “Not angels in that sense, I don’t have any more proof for God’s existence than you do. Again, society creates these names, not us. I prefer to be called an enlightened being. I’m no angel,” she said with a small smile.

“You saved me from getting into that car yesterday.”

“All I did was give you a detention slip, Pete, very simple. I usually don’t intervene in such a way, but it was an extreme circumstance.”

I looked at her, confused.

“You can’t predict the future?” I asked.

“Far from it,” she said. “When I awoke from my incident nobody had spoken to me, I didn’t see any light, I just woke up with feelings about you.”

“Feelings? What do you mean?” I asked. “You didn’t even know me two years ago?”

“I knew where you were supposed to be in your life, and I knew how to help you get there. Beth’s accident was not my doing Peter, you need to believe me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. That’s where she was supposed to be.”

“So you get feelings about other people too?”

“When they are part of your life, yes.”

“So why couldn’t you just have given Beth a detention as well,” I asked, anger itching its way into my voice.

“Because then I would be overstepping my coverage.”

“So?”

“I’m not allowed to affect anyone but you.”

“Why?”

“That’s the way it is Peter.”

I fell silent, my brain was spinning like someone had cut it from my skull and thrown it into a tornado. I attempted to assert reason on the situation.

“If you only woke up with these feelings, how do you know about all these rules, like ‘overstepping your coverage?’”

“Again Peter,” she said. “I just woke up and I knew.”

“Well, then what would happen if you did overstep your coverage?”

“They happen,” she said pointing to the bushes where the thing had appeared only minutes before. A cold shiver rattled my spine.

Then a thought occurred to me.

“But you didn’t overstep your coverage,” I said, my voice shaking. “Why are they here?” She took  a deep breath.

“Because Peter,” she began. “Overstepping my coverage is exactly what I’m about to do.”

My hands are aching badly now. The glare from the computer is starting to give me a migraine and I think I only have about four more hours. I need to finish. Thinking back on all of this now I have never been more sure that tomorrow will be it for me. It was easy to ignore the idea five, ten, twenty years ago, but now, I think it’s inevitable.

My coverage has run out.

Okay, time to finish up.

“What do you mean?” I asked. My body was still shaking, but my voice had stiffened.

“I mean I’m about to tell you things that will torment you for the rest of your life,” she fell silent for minute. I waited, my heart beating heard. “But they will also save a little girl’s life.”

“Whose?” I asked.

“Your daughters,” she said. Another terrible gust of wind ripped through the trees around us. It wasn’t wind though, I knew it was those things. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them. I could hear the muffled dripping of the fluid on the dried leaves of the forest floor. It was coming from all around us.

“What are they?” I asked, reaching and taking her hand in my own. I didn’t need to specify, I knew she could hear that awful dripping too.

“I don’t really know,” she said, “If I had to pick a name I’d call them anti-angels.” She  glared into the trees around us. “Creatures so foul they rot the air around them.”

“Why are they here?”

“They’re here to take me.”

“What?” I asked, squeezing her hand in my own.

“They can sense I’m about to reveal my knowledge to you. I told you that that it something we aren’t allowed to do. Well, when we do, those lovely gentleman appear.” I felt my face go pale.

“Will they come after me?”

“No,” she said gripping my hand. “Now that you know of their existence you may catch glimpses of them or feel them now and then. You know what I’m talking about?

I didn’t at first, but as I looked at Ms.Gibbs, a thought occurred to me.

The nervous feeling. The cold fingers tickling down my spine, the hairs on the back of my neck sticking up. The sensation that someone was watching me. It turns out someone had been watching me all along. Well something I guess is the better term.

“But they can not harm you,” she said. “Not yet.” I opened my mouth to speak, but she cut me off. “Don’t worry, Pete. I will be gone, but someone will replace me and they will always be there to cover you.”

“What are they going to do?” She looked at me, her eyes were staring into me, I looked away.

“They will destroy me, Peter.” Her words hung in the air like a foul odour. I could feel the pressure of tears behind my eyes.

“Why don’t they stop you before you tell me?” I asked.

“They can’t,” she said. “Not until I overstep my coverage. They can drool all they want!” she yelled.

“Can they understand you?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “Those are people, Peter.”

“What,” I exclaimed. “That’s impossible.”

“Not so,” she said. “They’re just more effective this way, I guess.”

“They affect you too?” I asked, surprised.

“Indeed,” she said. “I have quite the effect on them also, as you saw,” she was smiling now.

“So,” I began, sticky gears attempting to turn over in my brain. “They try to stop you from covering people?”

“Not exactly,” she said. “Peter, you’ve heard the saying for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction?”

I nodded.

“Well, they are the epitome of that saying. We try to lead people to the good future they could have and those things do the opposite.”

“What do you mean by good future?” I was attempting to keep my voice from cracking, and concentrating on what Ms. Gibbs was saying. I didn’t want to think about what happened only minutes before. I felt as if I thought about it too much it would drive me insane.

“It’s quite simple Peter,” she said. “With every choice a person has in their life there are good and bad decisions. With limited knowledge of your future we try and influence your thoughts and emotions so you make the good decisions.” She looked over at me, then out into the bushes. “And that thing tries to influence you to make the bad decisions.”

“Influence me?” I asked. “You mean that’s my...” I trailed off, staring into the space where the face had appeared.

“Yes Peter, that’s your anti-angel,” she paused, a look of loathing gleaming in her eyes. “If he would have had his way you would be dead right now.”

“So he made me fall in love with Beth?” I asked, swiping a tear from my eye.

“No, no Peter,” she said, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze. “He just saw where it was leading and made sure you kept loving her, making sure you got in that car with her.”

I took a deep, choked breath. I could still hear the muffled dripping sound. The fact that there was this thing following me, trying to lead me to my untimely death made me want to run home to my bed, pull the blankets over my head and never leave.

“And now, because I stopped him, he’s angry,” she gave the bushes a crooked smile. “He has also seen what I’m about to do for you and has brought some of his friends along for the party.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“I’m about to save your unborn daughter’s life.” I was silent. The dripping in the bushes grew more rapid, like these things were drooling in anticipation.

“How?”

“Peter, I don’t know how it happened, I have a few theories though. Maybe it is because you are my only subject, or maybe because we became so close as friends, but I have been able to get a closer look at your future. Now Peter, what I’m about to show are what we call signposts,” I looked back at her confused.

“Signposts are events in a person’s life that, without intervention from outside forces, like your pal out there, are certain to happen.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Now, what you saw earlier, are three sign posts in your life.”

“So you mean-”

“Yes Peter,” she said smiling. “You will,” she rubbed my chin. An action which warmed my stomach and eased my shaking body. “The problem is, I’ve also see one more and I will not allow it to happen.”

“What is it?” I asked, feeling uneasy.

“I need to show you,” she said.

“Why can’t you just tell me?” I asked, not wanting to have to feel that invasive throbbing in my head again.

“I can’t Peter,” she said. “Regretfully, but I am...blocked from speaking directly to a subject about the future.”  “Are you ready?” I nodded again.

“Thank you Ms. Gibbs,” she smiled again.

“No, thank you Pete, and one last thing. You need to promise me you will never tell anyone you know these things. Not your best friend, not your parents, not your wife, nobody. Can you promise me that?”

I looked at her, then nodded.

“I promise.”

Then her eyes began to grow brighter, brighter, brighter, and she showed me my future.

It’s really getting late now, and I think I can tell you the rest rather quickly. All of the things I’d seen the first time Ms. Gibbs invaded my head, pushing those thoughts through like a fist plunging into a thick puddle of mud, had come true. I married the beautiful, love of my life, Ruth, who passed away three years ago, and I did save my daughter’s life.

When she showed me my future, I saw a man; a man with the bright red eyes, sneaking through a little girl’s window. When she showed me I knew this little girl was my daughter. Moving like a shadow to my daughter’s bedside he lifted a fist and swung it down across her face. He then continued to fumble off his belt and pant and slid into bed with my young daughter. If Ms. Gibbs hadn’t shown me this, my daughter would have been raped and murdered in my own house.

Now, there was the other part. The part Ms. Gibbs told me would torment me for the rest of my life. By showing me all she did, I saw all the signposts; all of them. And what is the ultimate certainty in life?

I’m not upset at her for it, I know she was only doing what she thought was right, and it was right.

My daughter has lived a long, happy life and when she finally reads this I’m sure she’ll have some very interesting thoughts about that night when she was seven and she woke up to her father standing in her room with a baseball bat and an unconscious stranger on her floor.

Well, now you know. 

And now there’s only one thing left to know, and it’s the one thing I’ll never know. How’s it going to happen?

I guess it’s almost time, I can feel the hair rising on the back of my n-