The Girl Who Flies

Gabbie did not consider herself a freak, even though, on more than one occasion she had been described as such.

She did not have superhuman powers, even though her soul flew through the night sky while her body lay sleeping in bed. Anyone's soul could fly. All they had to do was believe. And Gabbie believed.

Though she could fly anywhere in the universe, there was only one place Gabbie wanted to go. Heaven.

When she was four, her mother, Katherine, died, severing her silver cord permanently. But that didn't stop them from spending time together. Every night, after Gabbie fell asleep her soul would slip from her body and race towards the pink sky where she knew her mother would be waiting.

That's where we were when Gabbie's silver cord, which was attached to her belly began to glow. It was a warning that any second her soul would return to the brownstone in New York City, where she lived with her grandmother, Alice Curtis and her sister, Victoria.

"Oh drats," Gabbie said. "I don't wanna go just yet."

But there was nothing I could do. It was my job to make sure her soul was where it needed to be, and right now it needed to be back in her body before the alarm clock in her bedroom rang.

And who am I, you ask?

I'm Gabbie's guide, keeper of her sacred scroll. She calls me Samuel.

My official title is: Spirit Guide. I know, it sounds impressive, but I'm not some enlightened being. I'm just an average soul, like Gabbie, except I live in another dimension. It's called Here. And Here looks just like there, but only a million times better. And where is Here? It's actually just three feet above there, though it vibrates so quickly I'm virtually invisible to all but a few. And Gabbie, she's one of the few.

Before Gabbie was born, I took an oath. I promised to guide her through her life to the best of my ability. I know every choice she could make, every road she could go down. But I can never, ever, interfere or hinder her plan in anyway. All I can do is make suggestions, try to make her life as smooth as possible. But ultimately, her life is her decision.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Gabbie said to her mother. A moment later, her soul was yanked from here towards there.

"I love you!" Katherine shouted, but the wall between her and her daughter, was now too thick for her daughter to hear. She looked at me, her slender fingers rubbing the golden key hanging around her neck. The token has given her comfort in times of trouble and the simple gesture told me more than words could say. She was worried.

According to Gabbie's scroll, a fork in her path is coming, and if truth be told, if fear were to consume her, things could get bad. Very very very bad.

"Don't worry Katherine, I got this." With a wink, I assured her, "She'll be fine."

As we flew through the space between dimensions Gabbie asked, "Can we take the scenic route?" She crossed her fingers and batted her big brown eyes. "Please."

"All right. But we need to make it fast, okay?" I said.

Gabbie shot ahead of me like one of the rockets her father builds. His name is Michael. He lives in Florida. After the car accident that took Katherine's life he was so overwhelmed by grief, and his job at the space center, it was impossible to properly care for his two young daughters, so Nana volunteered to raise them. They spent every holiday and vacation together, and one day Gabbie hoped they could all live together again.

As we soared through the sky, the sun was beginning to peek over the skyscrapers that loomed over the city. We shot down towards Central Park, where the trees burst with new life. Tiny clusters of bright lime leaves covered the limbs of the elm and maple trees. Pink and white flowers graced the branches of the dogwood trees. Wild crocuses pushed through the hard ground searching for the warmth of the sun, their purple petals stretching toward the sky.

The streets were quiet except for the squeal of a distant garbage truck. As we took a sharp left turn around a fifty-story building, we headed south toward Greenwich Village. Gabbie was ahead of me. I liked to let her think she could fly faster than I could.

She looked back at me. "Hurry up, slow poke!" she laughed.

I squinted my green eyes and gritted my teeth to make it look like I was flying as fast as I could. She threw her head back and laughed again.

When we approached her brownstone on W. 11th Street, Gabbie rolled into a tight little ball.

Swish!

She dropped like a cannonball through the roof. I dove in after her, headfirst. We passed through the attic filled with old junk that Nana Alice didn't have the heart to get rid of. There was the highchair the girls used before they came to live there, along with Gabbie's tricycle, Victoria's scooter, and a steamer trunk plastered with stickers from faraway places. Gabbie had once said she wanted to visit each place and according to her sacred chart, I was certain she could do it.

Inside the trunk were fancy dress-up clothes. Gabbie loved to play dress-up, but Victoria, two years her senior, didn't have the time or the desire to play the games they used to play. "I'm thirteen," she said, "too old to pretend I'm a princess." Or a movie star. Or an heiress, like one of those rich ladies who lived in a fancy penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue. She'd rather read or text her friends.

Gabbie tried to talk me into playing dress-up, but I refused. I told her it wasn't in my job description. A guy had to preserve his dignity, after all. So the old fur stoles and yards of costume pearls gathered dust instead of applause and laughter.

As Gabbie's soul passed through her bedroom ceiling, she flailed her arms trying to steer to the left. I knew that at this rate she'd miss her body completely and pass right through Victoria, who was standing over her bed blowing hard into a whistle. I gave Gabbie a shove. Thankfully, it worked. Her soul missed her sister and crashed into her own body sleeping in bed. I don't know which would be worse—passing through a human body or listening to Gabbie's complaints about passing through a human body. It's nothing to pass through something that isn't alive, but it's awful to pass through something with a heartbeat and a brain.

Gabbie's eyes popped open the minute her soul fussed with her shell. She was back. And just in the nick of time.

The Invisible Boy

Victoria gave the whistle a final blast. Gabbie clamped her hands over her ears. It was the third time this week she had slept through her alarm.

When the whistle ceased Victoria said, "You'd better hurry up. Breakfast is ready." She put the whistle on top of her dresser and headed down the staircase. Her footsteps were light as she floated down the stairs. Gabbie, on the other hand, could wake the dead. She stomped down the stairs like a herd of elephants, causing everything in the house to shake.

Excited to share her adventure, Gabbie threw the covers off the bed and raced across the room, her footsteps heavy even in bare feet. Nana had tried, unsuccessfully, to teach her youngest granddaughter to tread lightly, to glide instead of stomp, but she had had no luck. If there were one consolation, it was that Nana always knew where Gabbie was and what she was up to.

Gabbie picked the uniform she had worn the day before off the floor. With a whiff she checked to see if it was clean enough to wear.

"What?" she asked me, as I stuck my finger in my mouth and pretended to gag. "I'm eleven. I don't stink yet."

She tugged a white button-down blouse over her head. She didn't bother undoing the buttons; it took too much time. She ran her hands over the school's patch sewn on the chest pocket hoping to smooth out the wrinkles. The school's emblem hadn't changed since her mother went to Saint Bernadette's when she was Gabbie's age. A green and blue plaid skirt lay on the floor. "I hate this skirt," Gabbie mumbled as she kicked it up to her hand.

I know, but you have to wear it, I said. My voice echoed inside her head. Now that I was in her dimension, I could only talk to her telepathically. She turned her skirt inside out and pulled it on. The white lining of the pockets stuck out like rabbit ears.

You can't wear it that way, I laughed.

She raised her eyebrows as if to challenge me. "All they said is that I had to wear it. They didn't say how."

My lips rose in a smile making the dimples in my cheeks deep. I must admit she had a point.

Gabbie plopped down on the bed. In her hand was a pair of white socks. She rolled on one, then the other. The right sock drooped sadly into the heel of her patent-leather shoe. She tried rolling it up, but it didn't stay. She shrugged her shoulders. "Whatever," she said.

She had the same attitude about her hair. Fine as corn silk and just as blonde, it stuck straight off her forehead. She dragged a wet comb through her bangs, but they still didn't behave.

Nana called up the stairwell. "Let's go, Gabbie! Breakfast is ready!"

Gabbie grabbed her backpack and took off down the stairs. It still amazed me how one little girl could make so much noise. With each heavy step, the plates in the cupboard rattled and the silverware in the drawers clanked. The pictures on the walls jiggled, and the doors wobbled on their hinges.

This was my first crack at this guide thing. And let me tell you, being in charge of someone's life was stressful. Gabbie could be so stubborn at times that even though she knew I would never steer her wrong, she still ignored me.

Take this moment for instance. Even though her Nana told her a million times, Gabbie did what she always did. I warned her not to do it, but she did it anyway.

BAM!

For a second everything was eerily still. Then—just like yesterday and the day before that, and the day before that—Nana hollered, "Gabriella Flowers, what have I told you about jumping down the stairs?"

Then—just like yesterday and the day before that, and the day before that—Gabbie said, "I'm okay. Everything's fine."

Nana stood next to the stove holding her heart. She took a few deep breaths as Gabbie entered the kitchen. Even though Gabbie knew heaven was just a flight away, the thought of something happening to her Nana brought an unexplained pain to her heart. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you," Gabbie said. She reached up on her tiptoes and kissed her Nana's cheek. It was soft and smelled of fresh soap.

Though it was only seven thirty in the morning, Nana had already done her yoga. She traded her jeans for yoga pants and started practicing as a way to handle her new life's stress. It had been many years since she raised her only daughter, Katherine, and Gabbie, well, she was a totally different soul.

Nana kept her hair short. It was white and stood straight off her head with the help of a firm sticky gel. Though her starched cotton blouses had been abandoned for soft T-shirts, she continued to wear the pearl earrings Papa Jim had given her right before he died.

Though Gabbie hadn't known Papa Jim when he had been there in her dimension, she had danced with him here, in heaven. "He was so light on his feet," Gabbie had said to Nana the morning after they met. "It was like dancing on a cloud."

Nana started to turn back to tend to the oatmeal bubbling on the stove when she jerked her head back to have another look at Gabbie. "Is your skirt on inside out?" "Yes it is," Gabbie said proudly. She took the bowl of oatmeal from her grandmother and joined her sister at the table.

"You can't wear your skirt inside out," Victoria said, obviously disgusted. She was the polar opposite of Gabbie. She was impeccably dressed. Her collar was firm and her auburn hair was perfectly combed. "It's against the rules."

Gabbie shoveled a spoonful of oatmeal into her mouth. "Nowhere in the school's handbook does it say I can't wear it like this. I checked," she said.

Victoria looked down her nose, which was small and turned up on the end. "That might be true, but the other kids are gonna think you're a freak."

"I don't care what other people think," Gabbie said, though I knew that wasn't true. She did care—especially when it came to Melissa Graves, the meanest girl in school.

You might want to change. This could result in some unnecessary pain, I said. Gabbie excused herself and ran from the table, claiming she had to use the bathroom. A few moments later she was back, skirt turned right side out.

Victoria smiled. It was a victorious grin.

I took a seat next to Gabbie at the table. I don't eat. I don't have to. But that doesn't mean I can't. I could, if I wanted to. After all, the food in heaven is to die for. I cringed. Sorry, no pun intended.

Gabbie shoveled another heaping spoonful of oatmeal into her mouth. "You'll never believe where I went last night," she said with her mouth full. Victoria rolled her eyes as she always did when Gabbie talked of our adventures.

"Samuel took me to the Hall of Reconnection. It was totally awesome. I saw Mama there. She looked so beautiful—like she did when she was alive, only prettier. It was like she ... glowed."

"Oh, please, it was just a dream," Victoria said in her usual tone. It was like ... yeah, right. Who believes you fly through the sky like a bird when everyone else is sleeping?

"It wasn't a dream! It was real!" Gabbie said. Her face turned bright red and the veins popped out of her neck. She balled her fists up and I knew she was fighting the urge to slam them down on the table. She looked at Nana for help. "Tell her, Nana. Tell her it's real."

Victoria did that eye-rolling thing. "Really, Gabbie. Don't you think it's about time you stop believing in your imaginary friend? You're eleven years old."

After Katherine died, Nana had read every book about here she could get her hands on. That's where she learned about spirit guides and astral traveling. So when Gabbie started talking about the blonde-haired boy that no one else could see, Nana encouraged her to talk to me. And let me tell you, I couldn't be more thankful. I can't imagine how difficult it must be for those guides whose humans don't know they exist. Take Victoria's guide, Madeline, for instance. She faded from Victoria's memory when Victoria was about four years old. Katherine closed the door, sealing Madeline out. That's how it usually happens. A kid talks about his or her spirit guide, and because grown-ups can no longer see through the veil of dimensions, they just assume the kid has an imaginary friend. But let me tell you—we are real. R-e-a-l. Real!

Madeline, who was hovering directly above Victoria, sighed. Even Nana tried to help. "Do you believe in air?" Nana said.

"Yes," Victoria huffed. She knew where her grandmother was headed, but it didn't do any good. Nothing she or Gabbie could say would convince Victoria that I really do exist and that Gabbie's soul did leave her body at night to fly. But it didn't make it any less true.

With a bowl full of oatmeal and a hot cup tea, Nana Alice started to sit down in the chair I was occupying. Gabbie yelled, "Don't sit there! Samuel is sitting there." Though invisible to everyone else, to Gabbie, I appear solid, just like a human.

I wanted to move, to get up before Nana sat on me, but that would mean I would have to go straight through her. Either way, it was going to be awful. My hands braced the side of the chair, anticipating the swishing of her blood flowing through her veins and the pounding of her heart in my ears. Her thoughts would explode in my head like cannons. Luckily, Nana caught herself before I merged with her body. "Oh, I beg your pardon," she laughed as the teacup rattled on its saucer. She took the chair next to me. Her guide, Two Feathers (though the headdress he wore had dozens of them) laughed, too. I sighed with relief. Victoria sighed, too, but not for the same reason. She gathered her breakfast dishes and headed for the sink.

Gabbie didn't know it, but it wasn't really me Victoria had a problem with. Madeline once told me that every time Gabbie mentioned their mother's name, a wave of emotion rushed through her sister like a giant tsunami. She missed her mother so, but unlike Gabbie she didn't believe she could fly. So her soul stayed cooped up in her body just waiting for the day she could be freed.

Nana, however, saw the pain in Victoria's eyes. She placed her finger against her lips, telling Gabbie to wait until her sister was out of the room to continue her story.

Gabbie tapped her spoon against the table impatiently as Victoria rinsed her dish, then placed it in the dishwasher. She wiped off her hands, pulling the dishcloth down each finger. She had the tendency to chaff and wanted to make sure they were dry.

"Good God, would you hurry up?" Gabbie mumbled.

When Victoria finally left the room, Gabbie sighed with relief. I don't know how much longer she could have waited without losing her mind.

She told Nana how I took her to a huge building. "It had giant gold columns that led to a pair of large brass doors." She paused. "Did you know there were buildings in heaven?" It wasn't really a question because she didn't wait for Nana to answer. She just plowed on with her story. "It looked like one of those ancient buildings in Greece. You know, the ..." Again she paused. She tapped her finger on her chin. The name of the building with massive marble columns escaped her.