Dorian kept watch over the toddler playing in the sandbox in the yard. The industrious little boy poured sand from his shovel into his dump truck, concentrating very hard so as not to spill any sand and tickle his bare foot.

     “So, Dorian, how are you adjusting to your new existence?” asked Grayson.

     Dorian looked at him carefully before answering, taking in the long, full beard, black but shot heavily with grey. The neatly groomed hair on his head was only a few shades lighter.

     Although he thought he’d be uncomfortable working with someone other than Ben, Grayson put him at his ease, as if they’d known each other a long time. He’d been around at least as long as Donovan, and Dorian felt kindness radiate from him in waves. No wonder Grayson’s area of expertise involved children who needed one-time miracles.

     “There’ve been some ups and downs,” he admitted. “I don’t mind much being…well, not alive anymore, but somehow I still expect things to be perfect up there.”

     “Up there?” Grayson asked, chuckling. “How do you know we’re up? We could be down, for all that.”

     Grinning, Dorian looked away. “It’s what I’d always assumed, when I thought about it.” He stole another peek at the window of the house behind them, willing the toddler’s mother to check on her son. There had to be a reason he and Grayson were here, after all. The child was about to need divine intervention, but Dorian didn’t know what form it would need to be.

     “Dimensions, as you know them,” Grayson was saying, “don’t really exist. It’s the typical human manner of explaining concepts that are difficult to understand. It’s not as though we’re in another place, separate from the beings that exist here. We’re not in a different time. We’re in a different level of existence, that’s all.”

     “Oh, that’s all, eh?”

     “You’ll get used to it. Soon, you’ll wonder how it ever confused you. It’s like that for all you ghosts, you know. You’ve been reared in a human existence; you understand time, distance, limits. Angels, at first, really don’t understand those concepts. So, we all have to learn from a blank slate. Don’t let it get you down.”

     He was easy to talk to, Dorian realized. He seemed to go out of his way to make others feel comfortable. Quite the opposite of Donovan. He looked thoughtfully at the old angel. “I guess you know all of us, don’t you? All the angels, all the ghosts?”

     “I rather doubt it,” he answered. “I do know quite a few. My grandfather was one of the originals, you know. Created just after light.”

     Dorian stared, wondering if Grayson was having him on. “I didn’t really believe the Divine Creation theory,” he said finally. “I mean, not in the way it was taught in Sunday school.”

     “It didn’t really happen that way. But near enough, I suppose.”

     “So you know Donovan, of course.”

     “Our paths cross quite often. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t entirely turn your back on that one.”

     Dorian’s eyebrows shot up. There were angels capable of treachery? Yes, of course there were, he thought, remembering Michael’s hints about the intended parents of Alexa. “What should I know about him?”

     “Never mind. Just stay alert.”

     “But if I don’t know what to be alert for…”

     Grayson frowned thoughtfully, apparently deciding more explanation was necessary. “It’s not my habit to speak ill of others,” he said, one eye on the child, “but he is a trifle unhappy. He’s a good soul, and knows his work. Wouldn’t hesitate to call on him if I needed an extra hand. But he carries a bitterness around with him. Doesn’t surface often, but it’s there.”

     “What does he have to be bitter about?” Dorian had never sensed bitterness from the angel, more orneriness more than anything else, and it went along with what he knew after speaking with Alexa.

     “Oh, he thought a major judgment on someone he cared about was unfair. He didn’t have the power to intervene. None of us did. It was ordained, to use your human term, and I suspect there may have been others who also felt it too harsh, but…well, there you have it. The judgment was set.”

     “What judgment?”

     “I will go no further,” Grayson said, looking closely at Dorian.

     “I don’t normally stick my nose in where I’m not involved,” he explained, “but Donovan is training someone I’ve become very friendly with, and his behavior…”

     “Uh-oh. What’s he been doing?”

     Dorian thought about Alexa’s confidence that what she told him would remain between them. “I’d rather not say. I was told in the strictest confidence.”

     “Fair enough. I have a healthy respect for trust and promises of discretion. All I will say about Donovan… Well, he’s more human than you think. I mean, as far as hurt feelings and betrayal. He is fallible, although wiser than most.”

     “Would he pose a danger to someone he’s training?”

     “Ah, this would be about Alexa Vissenti then,” Grayson deduced, nodding. “I wouldn’t think so. He takes his responsibilities very seriously.”

     Dorian watched the little boy toss aside his shovel and stand, brushing off his britches in that clumsy way three-year-old boys have. Dorian moved to the other side of the porch to keep watch on the child’s progress around the yard, most of his attention on their discussion.

     “He’s… Well, some of his teaching methods are unorthodox, I think.”

     Grayson narrowed his eyes, peering closely at him, and the ghost decided he’d said enough. He wouldn’t want Alexa to think she couldn’t talk to him anymore, and Grayson appeared more loyal to Donovan than Dorian was comfortable with.

They watched the boy pick up a fallen branch and hit the side of the garage door with it. Whether through luck or skill, he’d managed to hit the button. The overhead door began to lift, and Dorian darted a quick look back at the window, where the boy’s mother should have been watching. It remained empty, and Dorian and Grayson watched, stunned, as the door hit the top, then began to descend, the boy directly under it.

     Dorian leapt to grab him, but too late. The door knocked the toddler down, and Grayson pushed Dorian away. “Go do something to cause his mother to look out the window! I’ll mind the little one.”

     Dorian raced into the house, searching for the woman. He found her in the back bedroom, talking on the phone. How to get her attention? Neither he nor Grayson would be visible to anyone but the toddler, and Dorian had seen no sign even the boy was aware of their presence.

     He reached down to pull the phone cord from its jack but was dismayed to find he couldn’t incarnate himself enough to grab it. He concentrated, but it did no good. Was it near panic that rendered him so helpless?

     In frustration, he took a swing at her. He didn’t feel the impact of his hand slapping her face, but she looked startled. He tried again, and the woman made an excuse to her friend, and hung up.

     Dorian tried pushing her toward the kitchen, figuring even if she wasn’t being propelled by him, at least she must be getting the sense of urgency he tried to convey.

     She walked—far too slowly, in Dorian’s opinion—to the kitchen, glancing around as if to see what was causing her anxiety. Knowing she’d remember sooner or later that her young son was unsupervised in the backyard, he left the house, running back to the garage.

     “She’ll check out the window any moment,” he said. “Can’t we lift this door?”

     “No.” Grayson was sitting beside the boy, rubbing his large hand soothingly over his forehead.

     Dorian sat next to them, speaking quietly. The small body was lying supine, trapped. The tiny ribs must have been breaking, but Dorian could see he was still breathing, although shallowly. The pitiful child couldn’t even draw enough air to cry.

     He met the child’s eyes. Even if the woman was unaware of them, at least the boy saw. He watched Dorian quietly, the fear deep in the large eyes.

     “You just hang on,” Dorian said, taking his hand in his own. “Mummy’s coming to get you. It’s going to be all right. Don’t you stop fighting…”

     He heard a scream from the house, then the sound of frantic footsteps. He didn’t bother to turn, his eyes commanding the boy to keep looking at him, keep breathing.

     Suddenly, the door shot upward, and Dorian turned, shocked, realizing the woman lifted it with her bare hands, in spite of the construction of the old-fashioned door opener, in spite of the weight of the stout wooden door.

     She knelt beside her child, feeling him all over, her words nonsensical and bordering on hysteria. His lungs suddenly given air, he let loose a yell, which quickly subsided into pain-filled whimpers. Scooping him up, his mother ran to the house.

Dorian moved to follow, but Grayson’s hand on his arm stayed him. “Our work is done, she can take it from here.”

     “What the hell is wrong with her? Leaving the kid out here alone while she gossiped on the phone! She doesn’t deserve to have children!”

     “Dorian, listen to yourself. Would you have wanted any woman to have been your mother other than the one who raised you?”

     “What’s my mother got to do with this?” he asked.

     “She, too, made mistakes. I suppose you were too young to remember, but twice, you nearly choked to death because she fed you the wrong foods. You couldn’t chew them properly. This woman will never leave her child unattended again. It was her fear and love for her child that enabled her to lift that door.”

     “How do you know about me choking? I don’t even remember.” Could Grayson be making it up to prove a point?

     “I was your guardian angel.”

     Dorian stared in wonder at him, the most fleeting of memories flashing through his mind at near the speed of light. In reflex, he lifted his hand to his throat. Could that be why Dorian felt so comfortable with him right away? Had some part of him remembered?

     “How long did you look after me?” he asked. “I almost remember…”

     “I was with you until you began your training at the Royal Academy. After that, you’ve been creating your own good luck, and bad as well.”

     “I thought… I mean, don’t you just look after young children who need one-time miracles? Like this little boy?”

     “Oh, that’s now. Back when you were a tadpole, the policy was to watch over your charge until such time as the innocence of youth left. That was my function, more often than not. You were a reckless daredevil, you know. I had my hands full. Most guardian angels and ghosts need only spend a little time with their charges. You were most definitely a full-time job.”

     “I’m sorry.”

     Grayson threw back his head and laughed, the sound booming around them. “It was a pleasure. One of my colleagues, Silas, had the dubious honor of guarding Charles Manson! Fear not, no matter what mischief you got into that threatened your existence, you couldn’t hold a candle to him. Though there are some who thought Silas shouldn’t have been quite so vigilant.

     “One more word of caution, regarding Donovan,” he added, his joviality of a moment ago replaced by something grave and foreboding. “Tread very carefully with that one….”