Peace With A Side Of Guardian Angel


I knew it was wrong. I just knew that there was a solution that the men out there didn’t know about. Of course, before father rushed out there with his gun and boots, he wouldn’t listen to me talk about the proper way to fight the men that came storming onto our land. 

    I sat at the bottom step on our stairway. If mother knew I was sitting so close to the front door while there was a fight nearby, she would have locked me in the basement until the end of the world. 

    The carpet had long since been ripped with the rough wood showing on our old staircase. Mother and Father had barely any money to fix it. We lived off the crops that grew in the spring and summer. But when time came to winter, we had hardly any business. Whenever I’d bring that up to father, he’d start growling about how those men had no business on our land either.

    As far as I knew, those men had never done anything except trample on our land. Father talked quietly to mother whilst he thought my sister Beth and I were asleep about the men. He seemed too mad for me to think that the men hadn’t done more than walk all over our land. 

    As I fingered the fringed carpet, the idea occurred to me. I didn’t think of it alone. A tiny person whispered the idea to me. Of course, if Beth had heard that someone was supposedly talking to me, she would have laughed. But I think it was a guardian angel. All throughout my life, I’ve been given whispers of advice. Usually, they’re pretty ordinary. Ordinary enough that I’ve always thought I had come up with it myself. But there’s no way I’d come up with a solution this daring; however, it was the only way for peace. 

    Though I knew father wouldn’t listen to me, I knew he’d have to with this plan. I silently thanked my guardian angel and went upstairs. I knew mother and Beth were hiding away in the basement. I went upstairs hurriedly, and I grabbed a few things, such as a knife and a box of matches. I stuffed these into a pocket in my dress. I knew this had to go well, or I was about to make things a whole lot worse. 

    I chatted in my head with my guardian angel. There was no way that she wasn’t real and so, trusting her advice, I snuck out the back door to the garden. I heard yelling in the distance from the front and I immediately got more tense. As my guardian angel whispered slightly reassuring words, I snuck out the gate that led to the front garden. Taking deep breaths, it was time to put the plan into action. 

    I was afraid to even look at what was going on, but I took a peek anyways. Father and our neighbors were yelling at the men who stood in front of our fence protecting our land. The men had their weapons down, so it was peaceful. As of right now. 

    I knew this had to go well. If not, well, our farm would be history. 
    I grabbed the knife from my pocket and crawled towards the fence. I leaned it forward as much as I could without making it collapse. I went and sawed a part of it open. And, taking some gloves from my fathers cabinet right by the fence, I cracked open the fence and crawled through. I would help father nail that back together afterwards.

I got up, and slipping the gloves and knife into my pocket, I broke into a run. I was running towards the forest near our house. I knew that wolves lived in here, but, if everything went to plan, I would be in and out of there in a maximum of twenty minutes. 

“It’s the only way,” my guardian angel whispered to me. A chill went down my spine. Her voice had become more frail and weak. I was now far into the woods, so far that I couldn’t see home. I look around, taking my knife out as a weapon.

“Be careful,” my guardian angel whispered and I tensed. Straightening my back, I slowly scan the area, searching for why I should possibly be careful. Nothing. 
After an hour of walking, I feel lost. I am lost. My guardian angel hadn’t talked in a while, and I gripped my knife tighter. Suddenly, I heard rustling.

“Don’t be afraid,” my guardian angel said. I watched a tall man, three times as large as me, come out from the thick forest. But this wasn’t any man. This was one of the men that had come onto our land multiple times.

A chill ran down my spine as I slowly backed away but tripped over the root of a tree. I kept on backing away, crab walking, until I felt my back against a trunk of a tree. He held out his hand, and I stared at it, wondering what he possibly wanted from me. 

“Take it,” my guardian angel whispered. Hesitantly, I took his hand, and he led me through the forest. Tense and shivering, I followed him for a long while, wondering where he would take me. 
A shivering mess, we walked through the gate leading to our family’s land. I looked up at him, confused, but he remained expressionless as he led me to our house. I ran forward to knock on our front door, and my father tentatively opened the door, before coming forward and hugging me. Beth’s head popped out and her eyes widened. As she pulled me in the house, I smiled the tiniest bit to the man, who nodded and turned to my father. 

As they had a conversation, I could tell they were coming to an agreement. Holding my tea, I decided to consult my guardian angel.

“Why did you do that? Why didn’t you tell me that was going to happen?” I asked her.

“If I had told you, this would have turned out differently.” She told me. “You wouldn’t have wanted to walk around shivering in a wolf infested forest intentionally. This was the only way to peace. And are we peaceful now?”

I look over at my father and the man chatting, no tension in sight. Maybe my guardian angel was right. I smiled content, and settled in my seat, enjoying the peace that had overcome our household.

EvergreenForest

CA

15 years old