The Guardian.

The Guardian Trilogy.

A novel.

by Carol A. Robi.

Summary.

This is the first book in The Guardian Trilogy.

Caroline Christiansen is a New Yorker born with the ability to see the dead. A harmless ability, if well ignored.

When her mother suddenly decides to change careers, Caroline is left with no other option but to move to Denmark with her estranged father.

For the high school student, moving to a small Scandinavian town after having lived her whole life in New York feels like the worst kind of punishment. That is until she begins to brush shoulders with the beautiful winged beings that are determined to change the course of her life forever. Life in the small Viking town turns out not to be as boring as she had previously feared.

What starts as a harmless encounter turns into a vicious contest, with her right in the center of it, as the beautiful creatures reveal their true nature, and condemn the whole world into joining their civil war unknowingly.

Caroline quickly learns that there's a worse fate than death, and just how much she's willing to sacrifice for a cause that oughtn't to be hers in the first place.

Chapter 1.

I shake awake from a dream I forget almost as soon as I open my eyes, to find that another nightmare is still going on.

I'm still sitting in the train going to Lejtoft.

The Christiansen family is indeed permanently relocating from New York to Denmark.

I turn back to face the window, blowing my warm breath onto the gla.s.s and fighting a childish urge to draw shapes on it.

Right then a figure appears before my eyes outside the window, a grey outlined figure in the tailored suit I a.s.sume he died in, racing with the train for sport- a ghost. I ignore him and keep blowing my breath onto the gla.s.s until the ghost tires and stops racing the train, disappearing from view.

I've been seeing ghosts or spirits for years now, and have learnt to ignore them. I don't know when exactly I began seeing them. I probably always have. Mom and dad always talk of the many imaginary friends I had as a child, saying that I would talk to them for hours.

As I grew older, I realized just how clingy these ghosts could get, once they learn that one can see and hear them. They need constant attention, now that there is no one else to talk to them in the short time they linger on earth after their death. They also almost always have an errand or other to be done.

'Write to my daughter and tell her this.'

'Tell them to look on the third shelf for this.'

'Do this.. or do that for me.'

I realized that it was much more fun to have living friends at about six. So I began to snub the inhabitants of the other dimension, as I call them, and have perfected the art ever since.

It had never been a serious problem until after grandpa, my mother's father, died, and I claimed to be talking to him. My parents had been very worried. Soon after the funeral, they'd taken me to doctor after doctor, and asked strings of endless questions, until I finally decided to lie that it had all been my imagination. This seemed to please all parties, and the medication had stopped. Eventually, the kids at school stopped calling me 'psycho', and I began making friends again.

Nothing good ever comes from acknowledging these creatures' existence.

"Den skal nok g Caroline. Det bliver ikke s slemt her." It's going to be fine, it won't be so bad to live here, the man besides me says softly when I yet again release another sigh. I take my time before answering him, wiping away the misty cloud I have created with the sleeve of my light brown jumper.

"I don't want to speak that language, dad!" I snap back at him.

"Du har ndt til at ve det," you need to practice, he insists. I do not bother to answer him and continue my aimless staring out the window.

Ever since he and mom had cruelly decided to uproot me from my home, he's been speaking to me in Danish, to prepare me for our great relocation to Denmark. I know the language well enough, having learnt it from him, and online, and practiced it every time I visited relatives from my Danish-side of the family.

I am not fluent however, and dad is worried about me falling behind in school. Or worse, having to send me to a private school where I could study in English. G.o.d knows we do not spend money on frivolities like that!

I know I should humor him and at least speak the language with him every now and then, to ease his mind that I am not as terrible at it as he fears me to be. I am however too angry at how my parents have toppled my life, to worry about the notion of humoring any of them.

My life came crashing down about six months ago. We'd been living our nice, quite odd, but steady life in New York, just as we had since the time my mother found out that she was pregnant with me. Mom is an artist, and had her own gallery in Brooklyn. Dad, well dad has always been a wanderer of the world, and often visited home every three or so months from one or the other place that he felt needed his services. I was a junior in high school, having adequate and not-so-loser friends in school.

Mom let me use a back room in her gallery for years, where I could do and store my artwork, since our small two-bedroomed flat was too cramped for my hobby. We'd always lived in that apartment since I was born. My life was steady, perfect to me.

Dad and I have never been particularly close, not a surprising fact considering we often lived together for just a little more than a couple of weeks at a time. I was however always glad to have him home.

He is so different from mom, yet so similar. Dad is quiet, but quite humorous, while mom is loud, all over the place, though just as humorous. Mom is quite artsy too, pouring hours and hours on beautiful elaborate oil paintings that often prove difficult to interpret. She is a true master of her works, and well-respected among her peers.

Dad is more practical oriented, and an expert woodworker. He created most of our pieces of furniture, bird cages, my doll houses, among others. He even made me a beautiful swan bed when I was six. At ten, it had been really hard for me to give it up, having outgrown it. The two are brilliant in their different forms of art, and have often worked together whenever they could.

When dad visited for longer periods of time, he would make little exquisite pieces of children furniture in the storage back room of the gallery, and mom would paint them bright and cheerful colours. Those would sell very quickly, as there has always been great demand for personalized furniture.

I must admit that I've always secretly felt unwanted by my father. He'd never been around as I was growing up, and when he'd visited, he'd been sure to divide his attentions to both mom and I.

He's always been busy in some activity or other- busy saving the world. He was a professional volunteer, if one could call it that, travelling to different areas of the world that were in need of his expertise, and helping them as much as he could. It is quite n.o.ble of him, but I always wondered why we, his family, could not be excitement enough for him.

That is how he met with mom. He'd gone to a remote part of Kenya with a group of volunteers, to help the locals dig up water wells. My mother, then a young Kenyan woman activist in her early 20's, had been in the same village running a makeshift school for girls with a number of her volunteer friends.

Mom says that it hadn't been love at first sight when she met dad. Rather that they'd begun a friendship that had slowly developed into love and mutual respect. Thereafter, the two had travelled all over the world together with just their backpacks, volunteering their time and services to one worthy cause or other. I think the notion quite romantic, and secretly hope one day to find someone who mirrors me so well, just as my parents found each other.

When they found out that mom was pregnant, a number of years later, she felt it was time to stop placing herself in dangerous situations, and take care of herself and the child. Dad knew a former woodworks teacher of his, then turned sculptor, who lived in New York and owned a gallery there.

Dad and mom had then travelled to New York, and he'd introduced the two of them. Dad's old teacher, Thomas, had immediately liked mom and her works, and commissioned her help in the gallery as well as most of her art pieces. Mom had therefore permanently moved to New York to pursue her other dream, artwork. After seven years, Thomas decided to move back home, Denmark, and sold his gallery to mom.

Life in New York had been great, as far as I was concerned. I had friends at school, had fitted in with the kids and neighbours, and had enjoyed sketching and painting, a talent I inherited from my mother, and one she'd helped nurture.

My family is far from a typical family, as you can probably tell by now. My father chose to continue his humanitarian works, visiting his family as often as he could, which was not very often.

Kids at school and in my neighbourhood always asked me if my parents were divorced. It had been very difficult for me to explain that my parents just had a form of long distance relationship, and are still very much together and in love. Dad would visit us for varying lengths of time, but in the end he would always leave, to someplace in Africa or Asia, or South America.

However, last summer mom began talking about going back to Kenya, and teaching at disadvantaged communities again as a volunteer. It had been after she'd watched a doc.u.mentary that outlined the still deteriorating number of girls getting an education in some marginalised areas in Kenya.

I heard her on the phone for hours, talking in hushed tones with dad. She'd later explained that she didn't wish to alarm me prematurely. About three months later, dad came home for two weeks. They discussed the idea for long lengths of time behind closed doors. They then began making frequent phone calls, and sending letters and lots of emails.

I knew what they were doing. I'd watched dad do it over a dozen times before. They were scouting for sponsors for the project, and it seemed to be working because mom's mood was starting to cheer up. Secretly, I'd hoped that they would be unsuccessful. I believe that our life was fine, and there was no reason to upset it.

I finally could not take it anymore, being kept in the dark, and one day over dinner, I introduced the topic.

"Dad, mom, please tell me what is going on," I started, noting how uncomfortable my parents began to look.

"I know something is going on, something that is going to affect me, and I'm old enough to be in that discussion."

"Princess, we just did not want to talk to you about it before we had everything in place," dad said, using the endearing word, princess, he has always called me since I can remember.

I kept staring at them with resolve however, not backing down. I watched him squirm in his seat as he turned his face to my mother to seek for help. Mom then nodded, and I let out a sigh of relief. They were finally going to tell me what is going on.

"Caroline, I've been thinking about going back to volunteering as a teacher in Turkana District," she began, looking at my face for my reaction.

I did not react though, I already knew that she'd been thinking about this after overhearing their hushed conversations. Turkana is a marginalized tribe in Kenya, living on the edge of the semi-arid desert northwest of the savannah gra.s.slands. I know the women there have it hard, dropping out of school to get married out of poverty, and toiling for the rest of their lives to feed their children. It is an unfortunate vicious cycle that is in dire need of breaking. I know my mother well to know that situations like this really break her heart.

"Your dad and I have decided that he could stay home with you, and I could instead travel there and help with educating the girls that cannot afford to go to school, as well as evening cla.s.ses for the women. I've found funding as well as a few other volunteers willing to help me with this exercise for a one-year contract at least."

"That is great, mom," I said thoughtfully, for I know how issues of gender inequality and oppression break her heart. Now she has a chance to do something about it again, and the means.

"Thank you, Caroline," she said smiling. "So your dad and I have just been discussing on selling the gallery and the flat this coming half year, and how to smoothen the transition for you two to move to Denmark.."

So that is how it came to be, that I am now seated on a DSB train travelling from Copenhagen Airport towards a small town in the eastern part of mainland Denmark.

I steal a peek at dad, who looks so lost that I feel guilty for having been such a rascal towards him.

I'm one of those children that has the misfortune of not resembling their parents. Their looks are so different from mine. Mom's rich dark African skin tone and long mane of neat dreadlocks contrasts my wilder but lighter toned hair and skin as a result of my father's genes. She is also a short woman, 166cm tall and about 70 kg, while dad is quite a tall man, 196 cm tall, well-built in a lean way, with light brown hair that is graying at the sides.

Dad has a strong nose and striking green eyes that almost look cruel. His mouth, however, contrasts his strong chiseled features. He has a wide mouth that is easy smiling, with laugh-lines at its corners. Mom, on the other hand, has soft brown eyes and a flattened nose. And though her mouth is much smaller than dad's, her lips are fuller, and her smile is never as wide as dad's. Few can smile so wide.

In contrast to them, I have unusually light brown eyes, much lighter than mom's, and definitely not green like dads. My eyes resemble moms in shape but dad's in terms of size and distance from each other.

My nose is definitely an amalgamation of both, my face shape dad's, and my lips unmistakably mom's. My long legs are unquestionably dads, though I only come up to 168cm at the moment. I am still hoping to grow taller. My caramel skin tone, tanned even darker from the lovely long summer we are having, contrasts with his much lighter skin tone, though it too is tanned to a warm glow this summer.

Unless when standing in the presence of both my parents, it is rare for people to a.s.sume I'm their child. I am a darker shade, and my hair is thicker and curlier and more entangled than most children of 50:50 African and Caucasian parentage, yet my eyes are too uncharacteristically African in colour. My sculpted facial features match dad's chiseled face, and our statures too are quite similar; how we sit, walk, or run. I am athletically built too, unlike mom's softer curves, due to the fact that I enjoy running and biking in the outdoors, just like dad does.

He must have felt my gaze upon him, because he now turns to face me, with his ready smile plastered kindly on his face.

"Dad I'm sorry for being so stubborn," I whisper to him. He lifts his hand and tenderly brushes one of my curls behind my ear.

"It's alright. I am also not crazy about moving back. So let us try our best to fit in," he says with a wink.

I feel even guiltier, for in all my rebellion I hadn't stopped to think about how my father must feel about being back. He is a free spirit, and has spent most of his adult life moving from one place to the next, helping strangers in exciting unexplored parts of the world. Now he has to stick to one place until I can finish high school.

He hasn't lived in this country in more than twenty years, and in that period he has never lived in one place for more than a few months at a time. My dad is a nomad, in every sense of the word, and his wings of freedom have just been clipped.

He must feel caged, I think to myself while I outline his profile with my eyes again. It would have been so much better for them if they had just let me get emanc.i.p.ated instead of this.

I lift one end of my earphones and place it on his left ear, turning up the volume. Bob Marley is playing the Redemption Song, one of his favourites. I guess it's my own way of showing him that I want to reconcile, and try my best to fit in too.

We get off at a small train station about two and a half hours later, along with two or three other pa.s.sengers. There is a small black sign on the platform with a sketch of a town's silhouette above the white letters written, LEJTOFT. My grandparent's hometown, and my dad's childhood home.

We have been to visit this town every other Christmas, but never in summer. I admit it does look much better in summer. The gentle rolling hills and the fjord far out in the distance calling out to me to be explored, is not too bad a view. The contrasting colours of red bricked buildings against lush green nature and the grey blue waters of the fjord shine bright and strong under the delightful sunshine. And though the breeze is cool, it is still warm enough to be called a summer day.

"What now dad? I still think Kenya was a better option," I say looking around me. "We can always catch the next train and get out of here." Dad laughs out heartily in response, and the few people at the dead-silent platform turn to look at us questioningly.

There, barely ten seconds in, and we are already outsiders!

"Tempting! Come on lille mus! Follow me," he says, dragging my two huge suitcases with him as he nudges me towards the parking area to our left. I pick up my last smaller suitcase off the concreted platform, and follow him. Dad has only a duffel bag that carries all his belongings, slung over his shoulder. I smile silently as I acknowledge once again the fact that he is a true nomad!

"Dad I know you are about hardships and all, but please tell me we are not about to walk all the way to grandpa's."

"Relax, your grandmother must be waiting for us at the parking lot," he says with a chuckle.

Sure enough, I see an older slender woman with cropped silver hair step out of a small dark grey car. She walks over to her son, enveloping him in a warm hug. We'd last visited the Christmas before last, so she must have really missed him.

I stand quietly behind them, giving them a moment. She pulls herself from him, but goes on talking in rapid Danish to him. Her Danish is so fluid and quick that I only understand about half of what she is saying. She then comes over to me with wide open arms.

"Welcome Caroline, I hope you had a good flight," she says to me, a small smile preceding her swift Danish.

"It was wonderful, thank you," I reply in my jerky version of the Nordic language.

Dad smiles then, happy that I have finally given in and spoken the language.

After loading our luggage into the car, we get in and are off to my grandparents' house, about five minutes' drive from the train station.

Chapter 2.

My grandparents' house is a typical Danish family house. I estimate it to be about 130-150m2 on a single storey. It's made of brown-red bricks, like most houses on this street, and sits on a small land patch with a dark green picket fence around it, sprawling with carefully pruned bushes.

The car crawls into the driveway and she turns off the engine. Dad then springs out of the pa.s.senger seat and goes around the car to get our luggage. I open my door slowly and step out, going around the car to help him.