Paul, age 11

Mary hit the ‘Stop’ button, “Can you tell me anything else about your uncle?—Off the record,” Dr. Adelaide asked.

“There’s not much more to say,” Paul replied. “I love him, but he failed at his main responsibility.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Besides how he should’ve Searched for the nearest Demon before opening that portal?”

“Don’t you think you’re too hard on him? Taking care of you and protecting a whole group couldn’t have been easy.”

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“Well, darn if hindsight is 20/20, but he was supposed to be an expert of The Way. He was my teacher, but I never learned anything. All that time together, and I never got past the first level. I never even earned my second candelabra branch. Baby candles are born with one.”

“What did he have you do?”

“Fetching stuff mostly; finding things he’d misplaced.”

Dr. Adelaide nodded in sympathy. “It sounds like he gave you a chance to figure things out on your own.”

He shrugged, “But I never got it. When you can’t learn the lesson, you’re supposed to get hints, right? He wasn’t a good teacher.”

“What about your parents? How did you end up with your uncle as your guardian?”

“He never said. I don’t know who they were, where I came from, or what I’m supposed to be doing except that I’m a ‘Guide.’ And the only person who knows is going to be impossible to find.”

“Well, there’s the answer to your problem right there,” Mary’s formal side slipped away with a smile. “How can a guide find the path if he doesn’t understand himself?”