Seer

Gabe

Mom has me all set up on the couch, with my leg up on a pillow, a tray of food next to me, the t.v. remote in my hand, and my crutches leaning nearby. I can finally relax, now that I know that Jonathan is awake. I just have to wait for Natalie to get home so I can talk to her about everything. I still don’t understand anything that happened.

The door opens, and Natalie runs in, followed by Timothy and his mom. My mom comes around the corner from the kitchen, and Timothy’s mom goes in there with her to talk.

Natalie and Timothy sit on the floor right next to the couch. “How’s your ankle?” she asks.

“Fine,” I tell her, impatient to get to the important stuff. “They gave me some pain medicine, I don’t even feel it right now. Do you know that Jonathan is awake?”

“Yes,” she says, and huffs with relief. “Angel told me everything.” She has lowered her voice to barely above a whisper, worried that the adults might overhear. But they are just talking about everything in the kitchen, I don’t think they’re paying any attention to us.

“Good,” I say, “now you can tell me everything. I was there but I don’t think I saw what was really happening.”

“Angel says you are very perceptive. There was more going on. When you got to the hospital, we were at lunch, so we were able to talk to Angel about what was happening. We think Timothy is the one who figured out what was wrong with Jonathan.”

“What was it?” I ask. I’d be surprised, but I’m starting to realize that Timothy knows a lot more than I’ve ever given him credit for.

Timothy says, also very quietly, “I hypothesized that the problem was that Demon is missing. Since every human has a guardian watching over their soul, I thought that Jonathan might be unconscious because his wasn’t there. So I asked Angel to have your guardian, and your mom’s, talk straight to Jonathan. I thought any guardian would be better than no guardian. It didn’t work at first, but when I asked them to use more and more energy to talk to him, it finally woke him up.”

“What energy?” I ask.

Natalie says, “We haven’t really told you all the details about everything yet. We were just focused on getting ready to talk to Jonathan, so we didn't really explain it all. But the guardians didn’t ever used to talk to each other. I got them to start doing it, then Timothy asked them to try to talk louder so they could hear each other farther apart than normal. They had to use more energy to do that.”

I’m not sure I’m following, but I say, “Um, all right.”

She goes on, “That ended up being the whole problem with Jonathan. Demon heard the other guardians using energy to talk to each other, and he started doing it with Jonathan, and that’s how he learned how to control Jonathan. The more energy he used the less control Jonathan had over what he was doing.”

I think I’m catching on to what she is saying.

“So when all the guardians yelled at Demon today, that’s what they were doing. Using all the energy they could. Something about all of that made Demon go away.” She looks over to the side, and I’m starting to realize that it means that she is listening to Angel.

“But then it helped Jonathan at the hospital?” I ask.

“Yes,” Timothy says. “The use of energy was bad when Demon did it, but all the other times it’s been good. It’s the way that I have started being able to hear Guardian. So when they used energy to talk to Jonathan, he was able to wake up. Just not so much like Demon was doing, since they didn’t want to hurt him. They found the right amount.”

I remember something that Natalie said earlier, before we went to the office. “Timothy, what did you do on the playground? Natalie said you did something else to make Jonathan stop pushing her?”

Timothy nods seriously. “Yes. When I am listening to Guardian, I do it by making my mind quiet and open. But the first time I tried, I did it by trying to reach out and grab him with my mind. It just gave me a headache, and Angel said that I shouldn’t do it that way again. I guess that sometimes bad people do it to hurt others. I said I wasn’t going to do it any more, but I did it today to Jonathan. That’s when he fainted.” His forehead wrinkles, and he suddenly seems more emotional than he usually is. “I’m afraid that what I did hurt him.”

Natalie shakes her head. “No, Timothy, Angel says he doesn’t think that’s what it was. He says that he thinks that Jonathan was already hurt by what Demon was doing, and what you did just made Jonathan stop feeling so angry. The problem is that Demon is missing, not what you did. You actually saved me. Then Gabe saved Jonathan from getting hurt when he fell.”

We are all quiet for a minute, thinking about the way everything turned out. Our moms are still in the kitchen, talking. I hear my mom describing what happened at the hospital today with Jonathan.

I remember something else. “Did you say before that Angel might be able to explain why I was able to catch Jonathan? I really still don’t know how it worked. I didn’t think there was any way I would get there in time, but then somehow I did.”

She looks to the side again. “Angel says that because so much energy was flowing, while all five guardians were yelling at Demon, that some of that energy must have given you some extra ability. He doesn’t understand it either, but he figures that the energy gave you whatever you needed to do it.”

Timothy looks at the ceiling, obviously thinking. “There’s still a lot we don’t understand, isn’t there? I think I need to take some notes about all of this.”

Natalie smiles. “I’ll go get a notebook.”