So what was it like, having a powerful Archangel as my own personal Guardian?
It didn't feel any different, actually.
On the surface.
More than three years ago I hadn’t even been aware that I had an angel watching over me. And when I did get to meet him, Samuel made it perfectly clear that I wasn't supposed to use him as a "crutch" (his word, not mine) to replace regular human interactions with.
So nothing much had really changed then, and nothing much was really different now.
Even when “now” meant I had two Guardians watching over me, and one of them was the Archangel Michael.
Except that, of course, Michael was not an Archangel anymore. It was a mind blowing concept that I didn't even know how to start understanding yet.
And on top of that, there was also the equally mind blowing fact that–now that he was my Guardian–it meant that Michael was now always around me:
Always watching me. Always listening to me. Always looking at me.
It was pretty stressful.
For the first three days since I learned he was my Guardian, I actually willed myself to avoid doing anything unattractive, even when I was in the privacy of my bedroom, or the shower, or the toilet.
After all, the Archangel Michael was watching me.
But by the third day I finally had to reassure myself that no one really looks attractive in the toilet. And my feelings of discomfort (not to mention bloating) brought me face to face with the fact that there were some very unattractive things I just really had to do, for the sake of personal hygiene and my general health.
So on the fourth day I simply tried not to think about Michael's piercing golden-slate eyes looking at me when I shaved my armpits, or when I dropped the deuce I'd been holding onto for days.
Supernatural trumpets did not suddenly blare when I did those things, and neither did my angels appear out of thin air to watch.
Then again, I knew they wouldn't.
But that didn't keep me from stressing myself out anyway.
It was about a week later when I knew I'd finally relaxed enough about the situation; I'd even gone as far as picking my nose (behind a tissue, of course) for an entire minute while in my bedroom... because I really, really had to (it was a slippery little bugger).
So yeah, all in all, things were pretty much the same. Except that they weren't.
#
Sometimes I had these flashes—side-glimpses, really—that reminded me Michael was around me.
Like those moments just before waking when I'd sense him standing in my room, watching me protectively as I slept… but then he’d suddenly dissipate the moment I opened my eyes. Or those moments when I went about my usual day, and I'd see a flash of light reflecting off his golden-bronze hair, visible just out of the corner of my eye… but when I’d turn to look there'd be no one there.
Those were things I'd similarly experienced with Samuel before, so in a way I expected them.
But things were different when I closed my eyes.
In my dreams, my glimpses of Michael were far different from any of my past encounters with Samuel. While my experiences of Samuel were of having him with me and beside me, Michael's presence felt much bigger, more powerful... more intense.
In my dreams I would sense him not just as standing next to me, but surrounding me—like his presence filled my entire room, at times including our whole apartment. Once or twice, I even sensed his energy moving in all directions simultaneously throughout our entire building.
His presence was always very distinct, very familiar. Like an embrace that had always been waiting for me, even before I was born.
But it was always in the background.
So even while—just like Samuel—Michael didn't really seem to want me to focus on his presence too much, it was often all I could think about... and yet couldn't talk about with anyone.
#
I couldn't really talk to Lana about him, even though at times I really wanted to. Since she was a leader in our school's Youth For Christ group, she would've been my most logical choice if I ever needed to ask someone about angels and archangels.
But the thing was, she knew me too well, and already knew too much.
She would've asked me the questions I didn't know the answers to yet. Worse, she would've asked me those questions whose answers would just be too painful to say out loud.
Father Nimoy was another logical choice for asking about this stuff, too. But he was too busy... And the topic was too risky for me, emotionally.
Which eventually brought me to Migs.
He really wasn't into spiritual stuff the way Lana was, but from what I could tell he basically believed the same things.
In the past school year we'd done a "pass the message" (my phrase, not his) kind of telepathic experiment about two times, and in our two-week long summer vacation he'd also called me up so we could try it over the phone.
And all three times, we were more or less successful.
I say "more or less" because it always seemed that Migs kept getting more information from me than what I was actually sending, so I often wondered if I was actually sending him the information, or if he was somehow developing the ability to read my thoughts.
Or both.
The very first time we did our experiment I was only trying to show him what my Guardian Samuel looked like. What he saw instead was the big picture of everything I’d been dealing with at that time: ghosts of murder victims, killers and demons, angels and archangels.
Our second experiment happened much later, towards the end of the third term.
I’d already managed to catch up with my schoolwork by then—thanks to Lana’s help—and Migs wanted to know if I was ready to give it another try. For scientific purposes.
We did it in school this time, inside Father Nimoy’s private office, with his secretary just outside the open door. This time Migs asked me to send him specific information about schoolwork, and after some thought I decided to send him the phrase “Personality Theory,” which was the report topic Lana and I and some classmates had been working on.
Instead of just receiving the words, Migs again received something else.
I realized it when he actually started laughing softly, prompting me to open my eyes in the middle of our experiment.
He’d still had his eyes closed, his hands still gently holding mine. We were still sitting face to face on the two separate monobloc chairs in front of Father Nimoy’s big desk, our knees just-touching, and behind him I could see Father Nimoy’s secretary outside the open door.
Even with his eyes closed he looked thoroughly amused; his head was tilted slightly to the right, a wave of his dark hair fell just above his right eyebrow, his usually-serious jaw now relaxed. I smiled.
“I wasn’t actually sending you a joke,” I whispered.
He opened his eyes and grinned. “I’m not sure what courses you’re taking this term, Sam… but I think I’d like to sit in on one of your classes.”
After that he told me how he saw several images in my head, one after the other, like a series of movie clips.
The first image was of Lana, and there was this bright light around her as she seemed to be dancing in mid-air. The next one was of Sir Julius, sitting on a swivel chair with a lab coat on, his hands steepled in front of him, the way he usually did when he was deep in thought. And then there was an image of Richard—Migs had this smirk when he talked about him— in a basketball jersey, dribbling across a court before passing on the ball to someone else.
The images Migs had picked up not only amused me, too, but surprised me more than I expected. Because just that past week when I was learning about people’s different personalities, I had those exact same images in my head.
I’d thought about how Lana was like a bright light, and how she’d always had a positive and adventurous personality. I’d thought about how Sir Julius was an amazing observer, seeing the details that no one else could. And I’d thought about how Richard was a classic team player, often adapting to what was expected of him, trying to make up his own rules now and then but generally sticking to the boundaries of the game.
They’d been fleeting images, and they’d popped in my head on different days, at different moments. But Migs somehow picked them up in one sitting, even though I didn’t intend for him to.
And honestly, it sort of scared me. It made me wonder what else he could pick up from my head.
What if he saw things I didn’t want him to see?
My fear suddenly reminded me of how we came about doing these experiments in the first place. Over the past year Migs had trained under Father Nimoy to control his mind— specifically, to block me from reading his mind—because he said there were things in his head that he wasn’t ready for me to know.
Now I began to understand the feeling.
“You look upset,” Migs suddenly said, as we walked towards the elevator after we said goodbye to Father Nimoy’s secretary.
I looked at him as the elevator doors closed; we were the only ones inside.
“I was just thinking... about how you’ve been deliberately blocking me from reading your mind, and now you’ve been making me let you read mine. It just doesn’t seem fair.”
He didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile. My tone had been light, but he somehow knew that this was something that actually bothered me.
“You’re right,” he said, finally, “It doesn’t seem fair.” He sighed. “I hope you’ll believe me, though, when I tell you that I’m actually trying to do these things for you.”
I frowned. “And how could letting you poke around in my head be something that benefits me?”
We weren’t really looking at each other. We were just standing side by side, facing the doors; Migs was even looking up at the panel showing us which floor we were on.
Even so, I could see his soft smile from the corner of my eye.
“You’re always listening to other people, Sam. For whatever it’s worth, I just want to return the favor, and learn to listen to you.”
He turned to me just as we reached the ground floor, just as the elevator doors began to open.
“Everyone needs someone to listen to them," he told me, quietly. "I want to be that someone for you.”
My heart went still for a moment, before it started beating again.
Migs smiled at me, then after a while whispered "See you," and started walking to his next class.
...Leaving me to think about him and what he said for practically the rest of the day.
Just two days into our summer break I finally began to appreciate Migs’ intention of being someone who could listen to me, and maybe even read my mind.
Because that was when the nightmares began.
#
The first time I had my nightmare, I found my dream self standing inside the Little Theater. All around me was darkness, except for the dim red down lights that had been turned on at the tops of the stage curtains.
It felt like I was supposed to be looking for someone, or maybe wait for someone, when from behind the thick curtains Legassa stepped out.
He looked the same way he did the first time I saw him: dark eyes, full seductive lips, lean and athletic body. He was wearing those strange pants that seemed to be made out of giant snake scales, and a white shirt that had a strange red symbol on it.
The symbol seemed to be moving. I didn’t understand it, but it made me shiver.
“Samantha Davidson,” he said silkily, his eyes bright as oil. “I will enjoy watching you die.”
Before I could say anything the ground started shaking, and all of a sudden the theater chairs looked like they were about to uproot themselves from the floor.
It was only a moment later that I saw the hundreds of talons that were coming out of the ground, breaking the floor open as they reached upwards, clawing through the chairs as if their aluminum and metal frames were nothing but styrofoam.
I was about to scream when I heard Michael’s voice.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered gently, right next to my left ear. As I did I felt his arms around me, and everything disappeared as I woke up on my bed, inside my own room.
#
The second time I had the nightmare, I found myself inside Richard’s old apartment, in the middle of his messy bedroom.
But instead of just one mirror standing against one corner of his wall, there were about ten mirrors all over his bedroom, all of them facing me, surrounding me in a circle.
As I looked around I noticed something coming out of each mirror's glassy surface: black sand that seemed to be pouring themselves out on the floor, each one taking shape as if there were invisible molds in front of each mirror, just waiting to give them form.
One of them poured out faster than the others. Its shape was human-like, but it was so tall its head touched the ceiling, and it seemed darker than the rest.
As soon as it stopped forming it solidified, and turned to look at me with burning red eyes.
It didn’t have lips but I felt it smile. It was chilling and terrifying at the same time.
It took a step towards me, and as I moved to escape I felt myself tripping and falling backwards.
I hadn’t fallen too far before I felt strong hands catching me.
“I am here,” Michael said, his golden-slate eyes filled with tenderness as they met mine.
I held onto him as I tried to set myself upright, and by the time I finally felt myself steady I was already sitting up on my bed, back in my bedroom again.
#
That was the morning that I called Migs.
When I told him about the dreams he suggested we do our telepathic experiment over the phone, so I could show him exactly what I’d been seeing.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I said, slowly.
On one hand I was comforted by the fact that he was willing to go through this with me. It made me feel much, much less alone.
But on the other hand I remembered how he always tended to pick up things beyond what I was trying to show him, and I was afraid he would get much more than what he was ready for.
That, plus he might also pick up on the things I’d been holding back from everyone about the Archangel Michael.
“We’ll pray before we do it,” he told me, then after a beat he added, “I mean, I’ll pray.”
I could almost see him smile from the other end.
“You know what prayer does, right?” he reminded me. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. And besides, they’re just dreams.”
'“I’m starting to think my dreams are a bit different from other people’s, Migs,” I told him softly, and just a bit sadly.
“Then that’s all the more reason why I want you to share them with me,” he said. “You don’t have to go through these things by yourself, Sam.”
If I’d been 100% sure what love was, I could’ve sworn that was what I was feeling from Migs at that moment.
It didn’t feel like the giddy attraction I’d felt for Richard before. Instead it felt a bit more like friendship, but with a lot more concern, and a kind of familiar intimacy I couldn’t describe.
In fact it was this same concern, friendship, and familiarity that made me want to tell him No.
Because I did not want Migs to get hurt.
While I had my Guardians protecting me when I had my dreams, I didn’t know what kind of protection Migs would have if we did this experiment he was insisting on.
Suddenly I noticed Samuel sitting across from me on my chair, shaking his head in amusement, and smiling his annoying big brother smile.
You can always pray for him too, you know, he told me without speaking, laughing soundlessly—as if his suggestion were something even an idiot would’ve thought of by now.
I rolled my eyes at him as he disappeared.
Which made me wonder what Michael would say, about me rolling my eyes so disrespectfully at my original Guardian.
“You want to pray with me, Sam?” I heard Migs say. “Before we start?”
Was he already picking up on my thoughts?
“I guess,” I said.
I wanted to say yes, but I knew I wasn't going to be completely honest about it. And I did not want Migs' safety to be dependent on a lie.
I mean, yeah, I'd already accepted that God exists, and it was true that I'd seen the power of prayer first hand.
But so far all my experiences of God had been... discouraging, at best.
He was like our Developmental Psych professor: All the guys in our block respected him and thought he was brilliant, but no matter how hard I tried in his class, he seemed to always find something wrong with my work, and I always felt publicly put-down afterwards. Even his silences spoke volumes, pointedly telling me I didn’t matter.
Especially his silences.
(Then again, our professor treated most of the other females in our class the same way, so at least I didn't feel too sorry for myself.)
So just like our Dev Psych prof, even though I knew God was part of my life in some way, I didn’t really feel He was one of the positive parts of it, and I couldn’t really trust Him.
And I certainly wasn’t going to pretend I did, especially not with Migs’ safety on the line. "Or maybe you could just pray out loud," I amended, "And I’ll just listen?”
“Good enough for me,” he said, and once again I could almost see him smile.
And then—even though I couldn’t hear it from over the phone—it was like I could see him yawn.
“You’re still sleepy,” I said.
“Yeah,” he admitted right towards the end of his yawn. “It was a long night, and I haven’t eaten yet.”
The moment felt suddenly intimate, in a strange kind of way.
I could almost see him still in his bed, talking to me from a black wireless phone, his hair ruffled from sleep.
The shirt he had on was thin and white, and a dark blue blanket half-covered him from the waist down. If I wanted to see more I knew I could have, but the images I was already picking up were making me blush, so I decided to just focus on his voice.
“Maybe we should have breakfast first,” I said softly, not knowing what else to say.
For some reason, my words came out in a way that made the situation feel even more intimate.
Migs suddenly went very quiet, and his breathing changed. In my mind I saw him holding himself still; his only movement was the rising and falling of his chest, which was solidly outlined against his thin white shirt.
Our connection on the phone made me feel as if we were right next to each other, sitting up on the same bed; my own breathing started to match his.
“Yeah,” he said hoarsely. I heard him swallow, then clear his throat. “I’ll call you later.”
#
Migs called me in the afternoon, just as we'd agreed.
We'd both already had lunch, and inside our apartment I was the only one left, while Migs said he was calling from his workroom while their housekeeper was cleaning the rest of the house.
“You have a workroom?” I asked him, as I settled myself in a comfortable sitting position on my bed.
"Yeah. It used to be Danny's room." Danny.
The big brother Migs never talked about with anyone else. I only found out about him when I heard snippets of Migs’ memories two years ago. He’d been missing for almost seven years, and he was the reason Migs went into paranormal research in the first place.
“You ready?” he asked me.
I wasn’t.
But then I doubted anyone could ever be really “ready” to share their private dreams with someone else.
Still, because it was Migs… I knew I could say yes.
“Okay.”
#
This experiment was different.
Besides the fact that we were doing it over the phone, and the fact that our goal was to have him see an entire dream and not just a phrase or image in my head, this was also the first time I actually paid attention to Migs’ prayer. And as he prayed, I joined in with a sort-of prayer of my own.
Please protect Migs, I whispered to the air beside me as I covered the receiver with one hand. Knowing that I had two Guardians, I was sure that at least one of them was bound to hear me. Please let him only see what’s needed. Please don’t let him get hurt.
When we were actually in the middle of doing the experiment, I found that it was quite difficult to both remember the details of my dreams and to try sending those details to Migs at the same time. It was either I could only focus on remembering, or only focus on sending.
“How about we do this instead,” Migs suggested, after about the third time I said ‘time out,’ because I couldn’t get the balance in between. “You just let your mind see all the details you can remember, and I’ll concentrate on picking up whatever I can.”
“Yeah, that’ll probably be better.”
I sighed, and suddenly wished he were here with me, so we could sit face to face and hold hands the way we used to. I always felt a deeper connection with him when we did that.
“I wish we could hold hands, though,” Migs suddenly said. “That seems to help us a lot, the first few times we did this.”
What he said made me smile. His words made me suddenly sure of the fact that we were connected—even from far away—and that this experiment was going to work.
“Let’s imagine we are, then,” I told him. “Holding hands, I mean.”
The moment I heard the words come out of my mouth I felt my cheeks grow hot. This time I was glad Migs wasn’t there to see it.
But just like with our early morning phone call, I began to feel like I was sitting right next to him; I sensed the change in his breathing, and felt the way it started to affect mine.
“Okay,” he whispered, his voice slightly deeper.
This time—after just a minute into our fourth try—I heard Migs gasp, and knew he got something.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
“Yeah.” He sounded breathless. “It’s weird though. I didn’t really get any images like the last two times. It was just this… feeling. Of being afraid. And then I heard this whisper. I’m not even sure if it came from you.”
“What did it say?”
“It said… grace. Grace something. I think the word that came after it was always, but I’m not sure. ”
It was weird. The nightmares I’d been having had nothing to do with having “grace always” at all.
“Wait, no, it wasn’t a word,” Migs said. “I think it was a name. There was an f sound in there somewhere. Alfonso, I think. Grace Alfonso.”
“It sounds familiar…”
“It does.” After a moment Migs remembered. “She’s one of the members of the deliverance team that helped us two years ago.”
Grace Alfonso. Grace.
The woman who’d sent me that letter a long time ago, telling me she’d been having terrible dreams, and that they seemed to be about me.
“Have you been dreaming about her, Sam?”
“No, not really. But I think she used to have the same kind of nightmares I’m now having. She wrote me a letter about it, right after our deliverance session.”
Migs sounded thoughtful. “Okay, now I guess this is starting to make sense. I’ll ask Father Nimoy how to get in touch with Grace Alfonso, then maybe ask her if she’s been having those nightmares again.”
I didn’t really know what that would accomplish, besides maybe scare me even more. But I didn’t even know why Grace’s name came up in the first place. Was it something Migs picked up from me, or from someone else?
#
That night I had another nightmare, and this time Grace was in it.
In my dream she was standing in the middle of the garden outside William Hall. An invisible force seemed to begin to move through the plants around her, because their leaves and branches all started to swing back and forth at the same time.
Pssst… pssst… pssst… the leaves whispered, and I saw Grace’s eyes grow wide with fear. But she didn’t move, didn’t even step back.
That was when I realized that she couldn’t. Her arms were pinned to her sides, and her legs were glued together rigidly. It was almost as if a giant hand was holding her in its grip, but I couldn’t see it.
Grace’s eyes saw me, and they grew wider with urgency.
Samantha! she told me, her lips unmoving. Samantha, save yourself!
The invisible hand suddenly tightened, squeezing Grace’s body with incredible force. I saw the blood spurt out from her eyes at the same time that I heard the cracking of her bones.
“NO!” I screamed, running towards her.
But by the time I reached her she had fallen to the ground, as if the hand that held her had let go and disappeared.
Her body was broken and lifeless, and where her eyes used to be were now empty sockets that dripped blood.
“No… no…!” I bent down but couldn’t touch her, afraid that I would just hurt her even more.
“Samantha,” Michael whispered, as he materialized right next to me, his strong arms already around me. “You need to go.”
“But Grace—”
“—Is with Our Lord now,” he finished for me, and a bright white light surrounded us, erasing everything.
#
I was crying when I woke up in my own bed.
More than the fear, this nightmare had come with incredible sadness, and the reminder of my own helplessness.
When Migs texted me later that day, I already knew what his message would say before I even read it.
Sad news, Sam. Grace Alfonso is dead. She died last night in her sleep.
I’ll find out more details. Text me if you want to talk.
I stared at Migs’ message for a long time before I accepted that I couldn’t talk to him yet.
In the same way that I knew finding out more about my nightmares would only bring me more things to be afraid of, I also began to understand that my not wanting to know more wasn’t going to help me, anyway.
Because this was happening.
And this was just the beginning.