Seer

Ron

“Hey Gabe, we’re going to leave in about an hour. Wrap it up, ok?”

Gabe looks up from a huge Lego construction that he and Jonathan are building in the living room. They seem to be creating some sort of medieval castle. I see flags on battlements, manned by knights with custom designed shields. “Ok, Dad.” He and his friend double their efforts, apparently wishing to complete their project before the day is over.

I head upstairs to take care of a couple of things in the loft area that I use as an office. Living back and forth between here and Brenda’s has been wonderful, but I keep finding myself letting things slip. I have to make sure the utility bills are paid, balance the checkbook, do stuff that I can’t really get around to while I’m over there.

I settle in with my checkbook and stack of bills, but my mind wanders to Brenda. I miss her. I laugh at myself. When did I get so needy? She’s only been gone since this morning, when she and Natalie headed out to go back over to her place. I linger on the memory of her kissing me goodbye, then caressing my face before going, her eyes full of love and promise. I watched her and Natalie walk out to the car, their long dark hair swinging in just the same way as they went. Natalie is Brenda’s mini-me, and Gabe is mine. Natalie has her hair, straight and dark. Gabe’s hair is like mine, curly and lighter, although I hope he keeps it longer than I have. We’ve made beautiful children.

And we’re making a beautiful life, again. I almost destroyed it, when we separated and divorced after I made a terrible mistake. I’ll never forgive myself for my weakness, for having that affair. But somehow, miraculously, Brenda seems to have forgiven me. After years apart, she has agreed to reconcile. We’d been leading up to it for a long time, but finally after September 11 we decided to stop living apart at all. That day really cemented for both of us that we wanted to be with each other, no matter what.

We still haven’t settled on quite where to live, though. She likes her little condo, where her best friend lives next door. And of course Natalie’s best friend is there too. But Gabe’s friend is here, and we’ve settled on coming here on weekends.

I frown at the bills I’m paying. It is working all right, but financially this just doesn’t make much sense, to be maintaining two households when there is no longer any actual need. It isn’t like we can’t afford it - after all this is exactly what we were doing for years while we were separated, each having our own house. But we don’t need to any more. This duplication of bills is spending money that could be going somewhere more useful, like college funds for the kids.

I’ve told her that it is totally up to her, where to live, when to make any more changes. I am determined to make sure that she is comfortable with everything we do. I honestly don’t care where she wants to live, as long as she lets me be with her. I have never stopped loving her, not really, and I know that she loves me again, thank god. But there is something holding her back. Is she afraid of committing to me again?

Suddenly, I have a flash of insight. I am an idiot. Of course she is afraid - I have never properly clarified my renewed commitment to her. I need to make her feel secure and comfortable. I want her to know that I am never leaving her again.

I know what I have to do.

I need to propose.

Ron’s

“Yes, my darling, you know what you must do. You must reassure your beloved mate that you will remain faithful, and that she is safe in your love. You will find the best way to do this, my dear, and will be able to keep your marvelous family together for a lifetime now.”

Watching my beloved reconcile with Brenda has been a joy. His happiness is reflected in me. He was lonely and sad for years, until he found his way back to her. Their wondrous daughter, the Seer, facilitated their renewed love. Her empathic abilities allowed her to see that they both loved each other, but had lost their way. And of course as any normal child would, she longed for her parents to be together once again. It was her influence, almost as much as her parents’ own feelings, that led them to this place of togetherness and love.

I observe fondly as my dearest one begins making his plans.

Natalie

“OK, Timothy, where do we start first?”

He writes in the notebook, and I see that it says “What is the power they are using?”

He looks over at me and starts talking to Angel and Guardian. He usually looks at me when he talks to them, since he can’t see them. It’s kind of funny, like he’s looking through me. I mean, he almost never looks right in my eyes anyway, but when he’s talking to Angel he’s sort of staring past me. “Angel, you said that you were using energy, or power. What energy was that? Is it like electricity? Or a magnetic field?”

I can tell that Angel is sorry that he won’t be able to explain this all the way for us. I’m realizing that there are things about guardians that we’ll never really be able to understand. Sure enough, Angel starts with “I am afraid, my children, that there is not an easy explanation for the energy that we use. It is similar to the way that the matter we are made of cannot be explained.”

After I repeat the words, Timothy says, “But we should be able to find it using science, right?” Timothy believes that science is the answer to everything.

“Perhaps someday,” Angel says. “In fact, human scientists have recently started speculating about what they refer to as dark matter and dark energy. But none of their experiments have had much success in detecting the actual matter and energy, and I do not know whether they will ever really be able to understand it.”

“Well,” Timothy says, frowning, “maybe you aren’t giving scientists enough credit.” I don’t think he feels like Angel believes in science enough.

Angel smiles. “Of course, Timothy, you are probably correct. You, after all, have shown through your scientific experiments that you can make important discoveries about Guardians. So I should have more trust in human scientists. I will attempt to have more faith in the ability of science to someday detect our matter and energy. However, at this time it cannot be found, and I don’t know of any way to explain exactly what it is. As I have told you before, I will not usually be able to teach you new subjects, but can only help explain things that you have learned through your own education or experiments. However, I will tell you what we did during your experiment.”

Timothy feels better when Angel agrees that his experiments have been useful. He writes some notes about dark matter and dark energy. “Well, I already know that there isn’t anything I can do to prove what you are made out of, so I guess it makes sense that we can’t prove what your energy is either. For now I guess I’ll have to wait to figure out your energy. But please do explain everything you can about what you did last night.” He waits, with the pencil ready on the notebook.

Angel is happy that Timothy isn’t annoyed about him not being able to explain dark matter and dark energy. “Guardian is the one who discovered what to do, when you requested that we ‘yell’. He realized that when we whisper to our humans, and when I speak to Natalie, we call upon the dark energy to help us transmit the words. Therefore, he called upon as much of it as he possibly could to increase the volume of his messages to me, while you were driving in the car last night.”

Timothy writes everything down as I tell him what Angel is saying. This all takes extra time because Angel has to wait every few words for me to repeat it to Timothy, then we have to wait for him to write the notes. It’s ok, though, Angel isn’t tired of waiting, for me or for Timothy, ever. He is always very patient. I’ll bet Guardian is, too.

“Guardian,” Timothy says, “thank you for figuring out what to do.” Timothy always tries to let Guardian know that he is thinking about him, even if he can’t see or hear him.

Angel smiles and tells Timothy, “Guardian is so pleased to have been able to assist you. This has made him happier than he has ever been before, which is what you have been sensing.”

Timothy nods, glad to hear about how happy Guardian is to be helping. Then he asks, “What do you mean you call upon the energy?”

I think I understand this part at least. “I think it’s like when we want to do something new or hard, we have to just try extra hard to make it happen. Like, if I want to jump really really high, I don’t just hop, I think for a minute and use all the muscles in my body to make myself go much higher than normal. Is that kind of right, Angel?”

“Yes, darling, that is very similar to the process we used to call upon the extra energy to speak. That is a good analogy.”

I tell Timothy, glad to feel like I have contributed some knowledge to this experiment. Angel whispers to me, “You are a very important part of this experiment, my dear. Don’t forget that this was all your idea in the first place, yesterday morning when you began the experiment to see how close Timothy would have to be before I could hear him.”

I smile at Angel, but don’t feel like I need to tell that part to Timothy. That was just Angel making sure I know that I’m part of this too, not just the person being used to translate.

Timothy takes some notes, and says, “Ok Angel, please go on.” He sounds so grown up, the way he says it.

Angel chuckles a little, and I can tell that he loves it when Timothy gets all serious about his science. I’m sure Guardian loves it just as much. I do too.

Angel says, “When Guardian started using the extra energy to speak to me, it was very successful. His volume increased significantly, and I was able to continue hearing him all the way back to Timothy’s house. And more than that, there was so much power in the communication that it impacted me in a new way. Although it wasn’t actually a physical contact, it felt like it, almost like a blast. It was very different from anything I had experienced before.”

I tell this to Timothy, then tell him what I saw when that happened, feeling very excited to talk about it. “I saw it, Timothy! It was so weird! As soon as Angel could hear Guardian yelling, he sort of wobbled, like his whole body was getting blown around by wind! It was super freaky!”

“Really?” Timothy is thrilled. “Like, you could actually see him getting hit by the power?”

“Yes, I think that’s what it was! It looked like the power made him sort of blink on and off, the way sometimes you see on t.v. when something goes wrong with the picture and things sort of shimmer? It was like his body was doing that!”

“Wow!” Timothy is amazed. His eyes are wide, and his mouth is hanging open. It’s like this is the most exciting thing he’s ever heard.

“That’s not all, though,” I say, extra happy to be amazing Timothy. “When he started yelling back to Guardian, he was SO LOUD! It was incredible! It almost hurt my ears it was so loud. Though, I guess, it wasn’t really my ears, since I don’t think that’s what I really hear him with. I hear him in my head, and it was like my head was full with him screaming.”

Timothy writes a bunch more notes, as fast as he can. “So, Angel, I guess that the secret is to use enough energy to be very very loud? And that way you can hear each other further apart?”

Angel seems very excited too, like he is all caught up in how thrilling this experiment is. He is leaning forward, rather than just sitting back calmly like usual. “Actually, Timothy, I have more to report.”

I tell that to Timothy, and we both ask Angel at the same time, “What?”

Angel laughs. “You see, after you were both asleep, Guardian and I were able to continue communicating, using our new method. We were both very excited by this discovery, and wished to continue learning about it.”

I repeat this, Timothy takes notes, and Angel goes on. “We realized that our communication was so loud that it was disturbing other Guardians in the area.”

“Really?” I ask. “Like, the other people’s guardians could hear you too?”

“Yes. There was no way to avoid it. Although the impact was the most extreme on me, since Guardian’s words were directed to me specifically, the interaction was audible for every Guardian between here and there.”

Wow. That’s amazing. I imagine how many people there are between our houses, and think about every single one of their guardians wondering what on earth was going on. Our experiment gets better and better the more we learn about the results. Timothy and I look at each other with wonder, and he writes more notes, then looks up, waiting for more.

“We experimented throughout the night with modulating our interaction, trying to lessen our use of energy in an attempt to not be so disruptive. After a time, we were able to reduce the volume of our communication, to essentially be no more disruptive than usual. As long as we concentrated and directed the communication very specifically to each other, we could each hear the other, even without ‘yelling.’”

“Oh my gosh! So, like, you can just talk to each other now whenever you want, even without screaming like you were doing last night?” I ask him.

“Yes, my darling. The experiment has taught us the new skill of communicating easily, over a distance.”

I guess it makes sense - if he had been screaming at Guardian all night like he was at the beginning, I never would have been able to sleep. Angel nods at me, to tell me that I’m right about that.

Timothy is shaking his head in amazement while he writes up the notes about this. Neither of us can believe how much we have learned about our guardians.

I think that Timothy is about ready to ask some more questions, but just then his mom calls up the stairs, “Hey kids, lunchtime!”

We look at each other and start laughing. Oh yeah, I guess we are humans and still need to eat food! Angel laughs too. So we head down the stairs.