My mom always told us she had a miscarriage a year or two after having me. We just learned that's a lie. She had a daughter named Jill who lived years. Not to adulthood; her death affected us surviving siblings profoundly. Shaped us, really. Yet we consciously forgot Jill--buried her memory and bought our parents' lie.

Why? Slowly I learn that Jill had a guardian angel. I do too of course--her name's Silky. Maybe the angels helped to blot the painful memory.

Was that wise? Even sane? Can angels go crazy from grief? It never occurred to me to ask what the early death of a ward does to a guardian angel.

Turns out it isn't good. I see a TV interview with the angel--though it's part simulation. Behind angel and interviewer is a green screen, so a proper heavenly background can be pasted in later. It's distracting--way too bright, a green scream. I turn down the saturation on my TV till it's bearable. Now I can hear...

What I hear's grim. Jill's death has made her guardian angel slowly come apart. Psychologically, yes, it's visible even before angel speaks--hesitant, teary, blindsided repeatedly by waves of loss.

But he's also coming apart physically--actually fading. Ragged holes show that terrible green right through him. Angelic immune collapse! Do angels who fail their guardianship DIE? Yes or no, their fade-out tatters reality--and memory.

Yikes. I better stay healthy--do my best not to die on my guardian. Protection--and vulnerability--work both ways.

Who guards our guardian angels? We do.

NOTES AT DAWN

• Miscarriage vs. living sibling: my mom did miscarry. Did it affect her more than I realize? Was she different before? If so, I was too young to understand--well under two.
• A death shaped our family, but is it true? I recently read Pittsburgh Home & Garden, a novella by Wen Spencer; in it, Jane's haunted by her vanished little sister Boo. Who, it turns out, may be alive.
• Jill: songwriter Jill Sobule? Saw her name today. But the Jill that meant most to me was in my dance improv class years ago--big crush on her. She too was a musician. So Jill = love, music or both. I missed out on love; that deprivation shaped me. But music too. And that one's fixable faster!
• ACTION: work up some music to record. Call Stephen the engineer, make a date... push myself.
• Emotional breakdown: on The Good Place, a flashback--Eleanor suddenly saw that other moms love & protect their kids, and started crying. Her unloving, unreliable mom trained her to mistrust, be selfish and think short-term. My flaky parents weren't as bad, but they did make me cautious.
• Angels can die: on The Good Place Michael the fallen angel faces he might die... and freaks! Ageless, death was never real to him.
• Green screen, too intense: for my dream A World Too Weird for Words, I drew a green dollar sign over alt Earth. So green = money???? Poor fit. I don't get it.

Our library notifies me a book I want is here--dream-artist Paul Nash's autobiography. Walk up to get it. But what they hand me isn't Paul Nash--it's Wood Sprites by Wen Spencer--a gleefully pulpy science fiction novel! Rather than tell them it's an error I take it home and read it. When the universe elbows me, I listen.

The Wood Sprites are twin sisters, prodigies, growing up in New York City, unaware they're adopted; they're fascinated with Elfhome, an alternate Earth, about which little is known yet. They do impressive web research and stage the results as comic videos--they animate Barbie dolls in front of a green screen, so they can draw in Elf backgrounds later. Except... their videos uncannily predict real news from Elfhome--their wild guesses seem psychic. As a result they have millions of webfans--though they're unaware. They don't do social media.

The book's full of uncomfortable parallels to my real family & life.

1. a tight sibling knot of child prodigies
2. a streak of ESP in the family for generations
3. the mix of brains & ESP alienating teachers & classmates, leaving them isolated
4. web-famous, but unaware, as they ignore social media--they just like to make goofy art about elves.

5. That lurid green screen behind a mix of human & nonhuman actors!

Sure, call that chance. Call me a turnip, too.

NOTES, REVISED IN A GREENISH LIGHT

• Greenscreen = genius? do-it-yourselfism? isolation? fame? ignorance of fame? ESP? Or all those!
• A sister named Jill = the more extroverted twin is named Jillian.
• Family shaped by death, missing sibling: predictive too. The Wood Sprites' adoptive parents & birthmom's first husband all died at orders of their murderous grampa, an exiled dictator plotting a comeback. The twins seek older siblings they never knew, Tinker & Oilcan, and rescue their younger siblings, mere eggs in a corporate freezer about to be destroyed; they steal the eggs and set a spell so the unborn spirits can use temporary robotic toy bodies. (I told you it was pulpy. Pulp gooood!)
• ACTION: Stay healthy! Dying hurts others, not just yourself. Whether or not angels exist, you're less isolated than you think.
• ACTION: Steer my life with intuition not logic. The dream used a (literally) lurid psychic hit to underline just how strong that intuition is.

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