Demon
Chapter 4

Jonathan

Dad left to go to work this morning after breakfast. Mom told me that it had been a week since I was grounded from t.v., so I could watch it again if I want. I hadn’t thought about it at all. I told her that okay, I’ll watch t.v.

So that’s what I’m doing. I’m staring at the t.v. but I have no idea what show is even on. Socks jumped up on the couch with me and I’m petting him. He is the only thing that has seemed interesting to me since I got home from the hospital. I don’t really care about anything else.

I hear somebody knocking on the door. I don’t care. I don’t move. Mom looks over at me, then goes to open the door.

Gabe comes in. Natalie comes too. Timothy is behind her.

“Hi Jon,” Gabe says to me.

“Hi,” I say. I keep petting Socks and looking at the t.v.

But then Socks jumps down off of me and runs over to Natalie, and jumps up on her. I look away from the t.v. to watch. She kneels down and gives him a hug. “Hello Socks! You’re getting bigger, aren’t you! Yes you are!”

She looks over at me, while she is holding him. He is wagging his tail and squirming all over her. She says, “Hi Jonathan. How are you?”

“Fine.”

“Do you think we could all go outside and play with Socks? Maybe throw the ball for him?” I see Gabe and Timothy looking at each other.

“Okay.” I get up from the couch. If she’s taking Socks outside I guess I’ll go too.

Timothy

Last time I saw Jonathan he was unconscious. He is awake now, technically, but I’m not sure I would really call this “conscious”. It’s like he’s barely functioning. Every time I ever saw him before, he was full of energy, moving around a lot, doing lots of things. He always seemed to have something that he wanted to do. He would seem excited about everything he did, even when he was teasing me.

Now it looks like he doesn’t care about anything at all. “Guardian,” I think to him, “please monitor everything he is feeling, so that you and Angel can describe it to us later.” I open up my mind so that I can feel Guardian’s agreement.

Natalie puts the dog back on the floor and starts to walk towards the patio door, saying, “Come on Socks! Come on! Let’s go outside!” The dog follows after her, wagging its tail. She looks up to make sure that Jonathan is coming too.

I wasn’t sure he would, since he seems so listless, but he gets up off the couch and follows after her. Gabe and I follow him out. I see his mom watching us, then going over and turning off the t.v.

Gabe replaces a tennis ball on the ground outside, manages to lean down on one of his crutches to grab it, and says, “Hey Jon, want to throw the ball for Socks?”

Jonathan doesn’t take the ball. He just stands there and stares at Natalie, who is sitting on the ground and petting the dog again.

Gabe watches this, and I think he’s trying to get Jonathan to start acting normal again. He says, “Here, Jon, catch!”

He tosses the ball over to him. But Jonathan doesn’t react at all. He just keeps staring at Natalie, and the ball hits him on the arm and bounces off. He reaches over to rub his arm, but otherwise doesn’t move.

I have this bizarre sense of deja vu, and a flashback to when the same thing happened to me a couple of months ago. We were in Natalie’s yard, and Jonathan and Gabe were playing ball. Jonathan threw the ball at me and said “Catch,” but of course I couldn’t catch it so it hit me in the arm and rolled away.

I can see that Natalie remembers too. She sucks in her breath and looks over at me with wide eyes. I start feeling sorry for Jonathan for the first time ever. Seeing this happen to him makes me realize more than anything else how broken he is because Demon is missing. Natalie isn’t the only one who wants to fix Jonathan now. I actually want to as well. I guess I am all in on the Jonathan Project.

Even if he goes back to being mean, it’s better than seeing him like this, just an empty person. Like he doesn’t even have a soul any more. I wonder about that. I know that the guardians are here because of the souls. “Guardian,” I think to him, “can you tell us later about how his soul is doing? Did Demon take it with him?”

Natalie puts the dog down and gets up. She goes over to where the ball had rolled and picks it up. She walks over to Jonathan. He watches her the whole time. She lifts the ball up for him to take, and says, “Here, Jonathan, you can throw the ball for Socks, all right?” But he still doesn’t take it. So she reaches out to grab his hand, lifts it up and puts the ball right into it. Then she holds the ball and his hand in both of her hands, and looks right into his eyes. “Jonathan, here’s the ball. I think Socks would like for you to throw it for him, don’t you?”

And Jonathan seems to come to life, just a little. He looks down at the way that his hand is inside both of her hands, and he gets just a little smile on his face. Not the smile I’ve seen on him before, not bright and huge and excited like usual. Just a gentle little smile. “Thank you,” he says. Then he actually tosses the ball over to the dog, who frantically rushes over to pick it up. It’s the most action I’ve seen from Jonathan yet today.

That was all very interesting. I take mental notes, so that I’ll remember later to write everything down.

Natalie’s

Guardian and I regard each other, startled. We have both been scrutinizing Jonathan throughout this interaction, observing both his actions and his mind. And of course his soul, the sad remnant that Demon left behind. From the moment on the playground nearly a week ago that we realized Demon had vanished, we saw that Jonathan’s soul was almost quenched. It was diminished from the blazing, towering aura that it had become, shrinking into a barely perceptible flicker. Its continued presence alone is astonishing considering the absence of the Guardian who had carried it to Jonathan at the time of his birth. But in its reduced state it is pitiable. Jonathan’s lethargic actions and sluggish mind are nothing compared to the catastrophic waning of his soul.

But the moment that Natalie touched him, his soul flared. Like a dying ember trying to reignite as a breeze blows across it. His soul began to glow, feebly still, but with a dim glimmer that had not been present since the playground incident. For the time that Natalie held his hand in hers, his soul emitted the tiny gleam.

The moment that their physical contact ended, so did the soul’s glow.

This is not something that we have seen before. Of course, this entire situation is utterly unprecedented. But we are both deeply perplexed by this new event. Physical contact does not, in itself, impact the strength of the soul. It is the psychic byproduct of actions which can change the soul. The soul cannot respond to physical stimuli any more than Guardians can. Only emotions, thoughts, desires, are effective tools in forging the soul. As we are intangible, so the soul is intangible, and so must be the mechanisms used to craft it into something fine and strong.

But, somehow, Natalie’s touch reinvigorated it, just for the duration of the physical contact.

How is this possible? I consider other times I have seen Natalie touch others, and know that I have not seen it have a noticeable effect on their souls. However, her touch has often had a soothing or comforting impact on the emotions of the person she has contacted.

Also, Guardian notes, following along with my thoughts, every other person she has touched has a present Guardian and an intact soul. Perhaps the effect of touch can only be seen on a damaged soul.

However, I add, it is not any touch. We have witnessed both of Jonathan’s parents touch him over the last few days, and their contact had no impact.

It must be both. The Seer’s touch, and the damaged soul. Together, their contact is meaningful.

But to what extent? What does this signify? Why did it happen?

I look to the children, who are playing together, not as boisterously as usual, but still seeming to enjoy themselves. Jonathan and Gabe alternate throwing the ball to the dog, while Natalie applauds their efforts and Timothy carefully observes. Jonathan is more animated now, although he is still very quiet and has not laughed or resumed other such normal mannerisms. But he is participating in an activity, whereas before Natalie touched him it seemed unlikely to occur.

Guardian and I realize, together, that we are eager to discuss this later with the children, and particularly with Timothy, who has so many times been able to develop lines of questioning that lead to important answers.

Answers that we must have.