Demon
Chapter 1

December 2001

Jonathan’s

I…

am…

Gabe

When we get back from Jonathan’s house, my sister asks me if I want to come upstairs to her room. “Yeah, sure,” I say, trying to sound casual. Mom and Dad don’t pay much attention to us, and just head into the kitchen together. I’m already starting to get used to the idea that we have secrets to keep from our parents. It’s crazy to think that Natalie’s been doing this her whole life.

She waits for me to go first, and follows as I use both of my crutches with one hand, and hold the banister with the other. I’ve gotten really good with my crutches in the last few days, but stairs are still a bit challenging.

I sit on the side of her bed when we get in, while Natalie closes the door behind us. “Why don’t you lie down,” she suggests. “Angel says your ankle is starting to hurt again.”

Woah. Will I ever get used to that? Maybe not. I stare at her, and she rolls her eyes, then comes over and gently pushes me back against one of her pillows. She lifts up my foot with the cast on it, and tucks her other pillow underneath. Huh. Maybe I can get used to this.

“Better?” she asks, sitting down on the chair in front of her desk.

“Um, yeah, thanks.”

She looks to the side and smiles. Angel must be there.

“Angel wants you to know that he only tells me what you are thinking or feeling if he thinks I should know. Only if it will help.”

Oh. Well that’s good to know, I guess. Since Natalie told me last week about being able to talk to her guardian angel, I’ve started wondering if I would ever have any privacy again. It hasn’t exactly been bothering me, but it does feel weird to realize that Natalie can always know whatever I’m thinking.

“Only when it will help,” she repeats, obviously knowing exactly what I was just thinking. “Angel says that he will always respect your privacy, and only tell me things if he needs to.” She waits for me to nod, then adds, “That’s how it works with Timothy. Although I guess with Jonathan, Angel has been trying to tell me everything for a while. Since I started the Jonathan Project.”

I still haven’t been able to really wrap my head around all that. Natalie decided to start hanging around with Jonathan to try to get him to stop being mean to her. To stop being mean in general. I always knew my best friend had a nasty streak, but he never used to do anything bad to me, so I tried to ignore it. But it started bothering Natalie and she tried to do something to change things. She called it the Jonathan Project.

But then apparently Jonathan’s guardian angel got mad at her for it, because he didn’t want her to change Jonathan. He liked it when Jonathan was being mean. So he controlled Jonathan into trying to hurt her a couple of times, especially when she tried to explain to him about guardian angels. I tried to protect her when he wanted to push her off the jungle gym, but then he and I both fell instead. That’s how I broke my ankle, and how Jonathan ended up in the hospital.

And how his guardian angel disappeared. Demon, Natalie says she calls him. I thought that getting rid of him was a good thing, but she told me that Angel says it is a problem. After seeing Jonathan tonight, I have to agree.

I know Jonathan didn’t hit his head when he fell, since I caught him before he could. They took him to the hospital because he was unconscious and nobody had any idea why. But Angel told Natalie it must be because his guardian angel had gone missing, after all the other guardians yelled at him to make him stop controlling Jonathan.

Now Jonathan doesn’t even seem like himself at all. I hadn’t seen him since he woke up in the hospital, so I was excited to go over to his house finally tonight and visit him, hopefully get the chance to play. But he didn’t seem like he wanted to play. Or to do anything at all. He was just strangely quiet. He answered any questions I asked him, but he didn’t start anything. He didn’t try to do anything. He was like a weird zombie.

I don’t know why his parents don’t seem more worried about it. I guess they just figure he’s being quiet, and that’s fine with them. But I can tell that there is something missing.

It’s Demon. Jonathan isn’t himself without his guardian angel.

Natalie watches me quietly while all of this runs through my head. I realize it and ask her, “Did you hear all that?”

“No, I told you that Angel won’t tell me what you’re thinking unless he thinks I need to know. But I don’t need him to tell me now anyway. I know you’re worried about Jonathan. So am I. So is Angel.”

“I wish I could understand why he’s being so weird. It’s really because his guardian angel is missing?”

She bites her lip and shrugs. “That’s got to be it. There isn’t anything else to explain it. Like when he wouldn’t wake up in the hospital. You were there, you know that there wasn’t anything the doctors could replace wrong with him.”

“And he woke up because our guardian angels talked to him?”

“Yeah, like I told you. Your guardian and Mom’s guardian used energy to talk to him. Timothy asked Angel to tell them to try it, and it worked. He woke up, but he still doesn’t have his own guardian. They don’t know where he is.”

I shake my head. This is all so strange. Maybe I won’t be able to ever get used to it after all.

Stefanie

“Good night, sweetie.” I kiss Jonathan’s forehead and make sure his blankets are tucked up over him. He looks at me while I smooth his hair, then closes his eyes. So I turn out the light and quietly close his door behind me.

He’s been so still since he was released from the hospital. We had a follow-up appointment with his pediatrician today, to see if anything is actually wrong, but there isn’t. He’s eating and sleeping, talking and playing with his dog. But just so much more quietly than usual. I’m worried about it, but the doctor assures me there isn’t anything to fret over.

Brad thinks it’s just because Jonathan is spending time thinking about the fight he had with his friend last weekend, and trying to act better. That was actually the whole point of grounding him from watching t.v. for a week, after he fought with Natalie and Gabe at the library last weekend. Although we had forgotten all about that after the whole playground accident and Jonathan spending Monday in the hospital. He hasn’t even asked about t.v. since he got back though, so I suppose that maybe he remembered he was grounded? I don’t know, and I didn’t want to mention it to him for fear of setting him off. Normally he can be a bit challenging, and lately he’s gotten to be a real handful. So this new milder Jonathan is something of a relief.

But it’s still strange. I can’t help having a little prickle of worry, my mommy instincts tingling. I guess I’m glad that Christmas break has started, and he has a couple more weeks to rest before returning to school for the remainder of third grade. Hopefully he’ll be back to normal by then. Well, maybe not all the way back - I’d like him to maintain some of this compliant behavior. But I miss his little spark.

Stefanie’s

My beloved is more right than she knows. Her instinctual sense that something is wrong with her son is accurate, but it isn’t anything that human doctors will ever detect.

The astonishing truth is that Jonathan’s Guardian has somehow vanished. It is utterly baffling. Neither I nor any Guardian nearby has ever heard of such a thing. The Guardian of a human is tied to the human’s soul. There is no severing such a bond. Or at least there never has been before.

Without Jonathan’s Guardian, the child seems like a shadow of himself. His soul, which had blazed more vibrantly than almost any other, has dimmed to the point of invisibility. It lingers feebly, barely glowing. Jonathan does nothing to feed the flame, having no Guardian to encourage him, no motivation to take any action at all. He survives, but does not thrive. He lives, but without animation.

It is impossible to know how long such an existence can be sustained. As it is impossible to understand where his Guardian could have gone, how the soul could have been left behind with the sad shell of a human that Jonathan has become.

I have never beheld anything more tragic.

Yet, I cannot lose hope. I must believe, for the sake of my dearest one, that her child’s Guardian will return. “My darling, take comfort in the knowledge that your beloved child survives, that he is here with you. If only his Guardian returns, Jonathan will return as well. We must all cling to this hope.”