 I felt like Harry Potter after the owls flooded his house with Hogwarts letters. It was like a twister had ripped through the local library and deposited all the pages it tore out into my apartment. My floor, bed, couch, kitchen table, counters, and TV stand were papered over. Scrolls were strewn everywhere. All of them bore the same message, you are welcome. I'd grown accustomed to receiving such scrolls once or twice a year. Early in life, they'd frighten me. It throws a boy off balance to learn he almost died and would have, were it not for supernatural intervention. When I saw one of the familiar scrolls now, though, I took it in stride. I looked up to the sky, muttered my thanks, and carried on with my life. But this was different. This was hundreds of scrolls. Somehow I'd narrowly evaded death hundreds of times in the course of a single day. Strangest of all, was that I'd never once felt imperiled. I'd not swerved from the path of an oncoming truck. I'd not mistaken bleach for coffee whitener. Usually when I received a scroll, I had a decent idea of the mortal threat from which I'd been saved. Day though, I was completely dumbfounded. A totally normal day, I told my dad over the phone. I walked to the office and grabbed breakfast on the way. I stood at my desk and worked. Then I came home. I consulted my dad whenever I got post from our guardian ghost as she watched over him too. The reward of grandpa's good deed transcended generations. In the future, any children I have will be under her protection as well. Stood at your desk, he asked. Why stood? Something's wrong with my chair, I said, and there were no extras in the building. Ah, he said smugly. Tell me about breakfast. What did you have? Ah, cranberry muffin. I wanted one of those bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches, but they were clean out. My dad chuckled knowingly. What is it? I asked. Has this happened to you? What does it mean? Am I on some hit list? You'd better summon her and have a sit down. He laughed. Can't you tell me? I think you should give her a call. Pops was like that. Esoteric. He liked being in the know and cultivating an air of mystery. A less theatrical father would have reassured his son and spilled the beans. Not my dad. Instead of telling me what was going on, he was going to make me go through all the effort of conjuring the entity to materialize in our mortal plane. Am I in danger? I asked. Call the old girl up. You'll catch the drift. I could hear him grinning through the phone. I could almost see him winking at me. I knew I wouldn't get any more out of this tight-lipped trickster. So I groaned, hung up, and reluctantly started the ritual. I shoved half a forest worth of papers from the center of my parlor to the fringes of the rum. With white chalk, I drew the fabled shield on the hardwood, lit four candles, and placed them at the four points of the diagram. Then I spoke the incantation. Elder spirit of the lake, foiling fatal tines of fate, stand upon the shield you bear, find your form within the air. The outside world grew black as a moonless night. My light fixture was smothered by shadows. My whole apartment was engulfed by utter darkness. Only the white chalk glowed on the floor. A wind swirled around the edges of the room. I could not see the papers flapping and fluttering in the vortex that spiraled around me, but I could hear them. It began to take shape, ghostly, and translucent first, but gradually gaining opacity. A rusty shield, grown rustier since our last encounter, engraved with the strange language of her race, the race of guardian spirits, who have floated alongside men and women since the dawn of time. The protectors, once proud, invisible, and strong, in constant commerce with humanity, now weakened and hidden, banished ever farther to the margins of existence. As humanity grew tamer, safer, more advanced. Lady Helen? I asked. In the past, she'd always appeared standing, bearing her shield like a disciplined woman at arms, this despite being an elderly spirit, crouched and hunched with age. But now she seemed to be hiding behind the shield, which was itself trembling. Lady Helen? What are you doing back there? You sleeping? If only I could sleep. The old woman cried, but I'm too busy saving you, sweet boy, from danger and death. A constant vigilance is required. She sounded fretful, hiding behind the old shield. I pictured workmen dropping wrenches from high towers as I strolled hundreds of feet below them. I pictured gas, slowly leaking into my office building and then a co-worker lighting a smoke and blasting the whole block to smithereens. Were these among the threats she had neutralized? And if so, what were some of the others? My imagination could only come up with so many possibilities. How many ways can a man almost die in a single afternoon? It had to be that I was being pursued by assassins, and she'd spent the whole day tirelessly foiling their attempts. Why don't you come out from behind the shield? I suggested. I'd prefer to talk to you that way. The poor old spirit peeked from behind the rusted artifact like an anxious mouse. She was disheveled and unkempt. Her flowing white hair was a tangled mess. Her fearful eyes were set in dark insomniac circles. It was hard to believe that this timorous, ghostly grandmother had spent the day thwarting assassins. Lady Helen, I gasped, you look a wreck. Don't I know it? She whimpered, looking shamefully down at the floor. It's happened before, you know, when my nerves got excited. When my sensitivity became heightened like this. There was no chance she'd spent the afternoon deflecting sniper bullets and diffusing bombs. She looked liable to cower in fear at the sight of a sharp knitting needle. It was with your father the last time it happened. She said, around the time he turned 30, he'd been a rambunctious young man, your father, traveling the world, getting into trouble wherever he went, riding his motorcycle too fast, down winding, narrow mountain roads. Perhaps I shouldn't tell you all this. He was even somewhat of a brawler in his heyday. He would get drunk with his friends at the bar and pick fights with other young hooligans after last call. A brazen fellow, courting danger, seeking out thrills, foolhardy, yes, but alive. Both of us were, hanging on by the skins of our teeth. The scrolls I sent him after such nights, a knife thrust narrowly parried in a drunken game of fisticuffs, a patch of gravel on which his racing bike almost skidded, from which he was almost hurled to his doom. But every time I saved him, she looked vitalized by this reverie. She straightened and stood taller. Her wrinkles seemed smooth. A flake of rust fell from the shield. The very thought of old dangers made her look younger, more engaging. A lively fire flared in her eyes. You're welcome, I said in the notes, and he always thanked me for saving his life. But I never thanked him for giving me so many opportunities. And now, what opportunities are left? Her eyes grew dim, her face wrinkled. She hunched. She was a decrepit old lady again, peering anxiously at the floor. It was when he got his accounting designation. She explained, that's when my last fit struck, when he started his cubicle job. Got a stable routine, drifted away from his wild friends. Then he met your mother and really buried all traces of the spitfire he'd been. The transformation was so gradual, I hardly noticed. Without any real danger or excitement, the small worries began to seem large. And monstrous, terrible threats, suddenly minuscule dangers felt like matters of life and death. He would jaywalk across an empty street, and I would be on my guard. What if a car suddenly reared out of nowhere and flattened him? He would get a small hangnail, and I'd ask myself, what if it turned septic and curdles his blood? The smaller and more routine his world got, the smaller my tolerance for danger became. The worried old woman lightly sobbed. She shook her head and muttered, admonishing herself for her weakness. I wanted to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder, but of course I could not, as her body was phantasmal. At least when you were born. She sniffled. That gave me something to do. You gave me purpose again. Toddlers are always a trip and bump away from a mortal injury. Kids are much the same. Teenagers seek danger out, and young men are driven by pride, peer pressure, and a lust for excitement to stare death himself in the eye. You kept me busy for many years, Henry, but now you, too, have settled into your routine. You, too, have tamed the wildness inside you. No longer do you pursue thrills or novelty. You don't even flirt with danger anymore. There's nothing new in your life, nothing exciting. You traverse your regular paths, you sit at your desk and type. Just like your father, and as your world becomes narrow and predictable, I become a frail and fretful old fool once again. She seemed truly ashamed of the level to which she'd sunk, to which we both had sunk. I wondered what minor inconveniences she'd classified as mortal dangers throughout the day. Perhaps she feared the nitrites in the bacon and the calories in the cheese of the breakfast sandwich. That's why she'd insured they ran out of stock. And the health experts claim that sitting is the new smoking. Maybe she'd vanished the chairs in my office building so that I might avoid obesity and ticker troubles. I wasn't built for this modern world. She cried. I was made to stave off hungry lions and roving hordes of cannibals to protect humans from real danger, to watch over them as they adventure through the wilderness, guiding them away from treacherous cliffs and scorpion dens. I try to keep my overstimulated, hyperactive threat management system under wraps. I do not want to be a bother. But eventually it becomes too much to bear. I burst. The pressure has been building for months, Henry, as you've gradually given up all the adventuresomeness of your youth. But today, such a mundane day, so identical to every day you've lived for the past month, it became overwhelming. Our tiny world cripples me with fear. Every time you talk to someone new, every time a car drives by, every time you lift your water bottle to your lips, you could choke. I must stop you from choking. Oh. As the poor old demigod wept, I considered her words. She was not alone in feeling like my life had grown stale and gone astray. I, too, noticed I'd become more irritable and anxious lately. I was seeing the minute problems of humdrum life take hold of my mind and define the limits of my world concerns about bills, fears about meeting new people, dissatisfactions with the way my life was unfolding. These had begun to zap me of all energy and passion. These had begun to prevent me from venturing out of my safe and familiar bubble. Now I was scared even to think new thoughts, let alone experience new people or activities. Good Lord. Even when I slept, I used to dream about hunting fabled beasts in faraway mountain ranges. Now when I closed my eyes, I saw paperwork in the quivering mouth of my boss, a prim ogre berating me. And when I wasn't brooding over feeling hopelessly stuck in a rut, I was distracting myself, meaningless entertainment, games on my phone, scrolling through social media. I certainly wasn't making any changes to my life, to pull myself out of the muck. But my tepid and inert existence was not only dragging me down into a listless malaise. It was driving Lady Helen, my protector, my guardian spirit, crazy with anxiety. It was draining and shriveling her, too. The proud warrior spirit had been cowed by my torpor. She was an anxious husk of the powerful being she'd once been. We need to make a change. I said, Lady Helen looked up and sniffled, We can't change. She said quietly, It's too late, too difficult, too dangerous. To face the world now, with our defenses down, They'll eat us alive. I can hardly hold up my shield, And it's caked with rust, no, no. There's no hope for vitality again, Henry. We've had our time in the sun, It's best to humbly wither. To wait out the end, To bear through the stress, And watch the world shrink until the final curtain falls. No, I said, We won't do that. We can't. But how could we change things now? I think maybe I might have an idea, I muttered. But then I summoned the old boldness and proclaimed without a shred of self-doubt, No, I have an idea and you and I are going to see it through. When the wheels of habit have worn grooves into your world, it's hard to break yourself free. When the momentum of your life has carried you in a certain direction, it's tough to suddenly change course. So it was for Lady Helen and I, we had big ideas and elaborate plans for the lives we wanted to lead. Every night we got drunk on the possibilities of change. It seemed each thrill or exotic location was within reach. But every morning hung over from the previous night's binge on flighty fantasies. We struggled to actually make any changes. We had to start small. We had to make gradual shifts. That was the only way. We began by taking evening strolls to parts of town with which I was unfamiliar, waves from a distance to other ambulance turned into chit chat, which turned into conversation. I learned names and occupations, I pet dogs. I began to exchange contact information, make new acquaintances, even a new friend. We went to movies, sometimes just Lady Helen and I, sometimes with my sister or dad. We threw a dinner party at my apartment to which I invited old buddies with whom I'd fallen out of contact. A couple nights I even forced the lady to accompany me to the bars and clubs I'd haunted in my early twenties. The idea seemed promising. The reality was a letdown. I was far too old to be dancing with undergrads and Lady Helen was centuries older than me. But what counted was the effort and intention. There were bound to be missteps along the way. Of course I wasn't living the scrappy bohemian life my father had lived. I didn't start any drunken brawls. I didn't buy a motorcycle, let alone tear through narrow mountain passes on one. Nevertheless, I was expanding my horizons and Lady Helen was in much better spirits as a result. On one of our nightly walks, I managed to ask a dark eyed girl with a doberman for her name and number. Her name was Mila. She smiled and nodded enthusiastically and typed her number in my phone. Her grouchy dog growled and glared, saliva dripping from his mouth like I was some incomparably dangerous yet incomparably delicious steak. You are welcome, said Lady Helen, after we floated away from the encounter. Mila's number safe and sound in my pocket. For what? I almost maimed you tuck and run. She said, I had visions of that beast tearing your throat out and of your magnificent Mila growing fangs and joining the feeding frenzy. Yeah, yeah, I'm glad you kept that to yourself. As am I, she said, though I'm sure I'll remind you when you try to call her to set up a date. For all our progress, I laughed. You still have an angsty turn of mind. You keep pushing me to get out of my comfort zone. Are you sure there's nothing you need to work on yourself? In the 1500s, a malevolent sorcerer had trapped Lady Helen in a small metal box. Over the years, that box somehow found its way to the bottom of a local lake. There she lay imprisoned, cramped and trapped and alone. So my grandfather, out fishing, accidentally hooked and reeled the box in. Then he pried it open, unwittingly releasing her from that solitary hell. As a reward, she promised to protect him and his descendants for as long as his line endured. We stood gazing out over the lake. She'd been growing progressively younger as the weeks marched on. Her shield was no longer a tarnished relic, together we'd made great strides. But now, standing on that shore, she seemed withered again, weak, old, afraid. Her shield was decrepit and brown. She'd not been back to the lake since her release, merely standing on the shore, filled her with fear. It's been seventy years. She said, please, I'm not ready. You're ready. I said, but you can't swim. She cried. Exactly. That's half the fun. Climbing into the canoe and rowing out to the middle of the lake was a risk for me. But she was the courageous one that night, accompanying me to a place that held such painful memories for her. Just as setting out toward a new future takes courage, so does coming to terms with a past you would rather leave sunk in the dark waters of the unconscious and history. But her past was like an anchor, invisibly tethering her to old fears and pains she needed to face it, to truly move forward, to free herself. And I knew she was ready. Besides, I said, rowing into the sunset, zipped up in a bright yellow life jacket. Even if I fall out and you're too overwhelmed to help, this thing's puffy enough to keep a dam and villa float. There's no way I'll be in real danger. Yes, said the old lady, shriveling like a prune in real time, her shield disintegrating with every oar stroke, until it looked like an old pot lid left for a thousand years to corrode in the rain. Night had fallen by the time we reached the middle of the lake. The bright moon was reflected in the water, which gently rocked my canoe. A trillion stars twinkled in the dark sky. In the past, I would have brooded on the immensity of space, the preponderance of dark compared to the scattering of light, the smallness of earth and humanity are relative insignificance in the grand scheme of things. But tonight, the stars meant something else. They were points of light that held fast. They were a brightness that trembled, yes, but endured. I wasn't concerned about the fact that one day they would die. I was happy that now they were a light, alive. Just as I was, separated from darkness and doom by a thin haul, a bright jacket and an old demigod's protection thrilled to be so close to the line between life and death and tremendously grateful to be on this side of the line. This was an adventure. This was something new. This was living dive in. I said she looked like a great grandmother on her deathbed, shriveled with age and fear, hardly responsive, I can't, she whispered, you can, I said, dive in. She was shrinking. Her shield was no larger than the lid of a tin can corroded flaking away into brown dust. She was a dwarfish skeleton with wrinkled pouches of skin hanging from her bones. Her thin white hair was wispy, dry, Lady Helen. I said, yes, child, she croaked, dive in, but I'm scared, we've come this far. I said, look what we faced and we've got many conquests ahead of us, but you need to do this. I know it. You know it. I have faith in you. You're stronger than you know. The old weary crone nodded. She reached her arthritic hand to the edge of the boat. Her sunken face was lined with fear. She looked at the water in despair. Then with all the strength she had, she heaved herself into the dark lake. There was no splash. The night was silent, calm and still, save for the gentle rock of my canoe. I held my breath with her until I couldn't hold it anymore. I exhaled with a violent gasp. I watched the placid water and waited. I wondered how long she would stay down there. A fear began creeping into my calm. What if I pushed her too far, too fast? Perhaps she wasn't ready after all. I had no idea what spirits like her were capable of withstanding. I might have consigned her to death. Or perhaps the place was like kryptonite to her, and now she was stuck at the bottom of the lake, languishing, trapped, alone, weak, impossible to retrieve. I was overwhelmed with worry of an intensity I thought I'd left behind. The foolhardiness of the whole evening seemed clear. We should have built ourselves up farther before forcing her to face this. Cliff jumping in Thailand, running with the bowls in Spain, so many thrilling activities we had not yet accomplished. We were still on the road to recovery. After all, I was still making excuses about calling Myla, and yet I'd forced this old crone to jump from our boat into the arms of her greatest fear. I looked over the edge where she dropped, catching my faint reflection. I fell into a panic. I'd killed my elderly protector, and now I was alone in a dark lake. What if I fell overboard? I couldn't swim. Lady Helen, I cried. Lady Helen, can you hear me? Are you okay? We need to go back. Behind me, the moon grew brighter. It seemed to illuminate the lake and fill up the sky with silver light. Lady Helen, I cried. I'm sorry. Please, can you hear me? I thought you were ready. And you were right. I turned to face the blinding moon, but the light was not coming from the moon. It was coming from the beautiful young woman who floated above the water. Her blonde hair cascaded down her shoulders, not a wrinkle in her face. Her eyes burned like two blue stars. Her bright shield was burnished like a mirror and engraved with letters that smoldered like fire. Now it's my turn to goad you, joked the young demigod. You've got a phone call to make. It's been four years since that night on the lake. I wish I could say my life has been one grand adventure ever since, an electrified and uncompromising existence filled with constant discoveries and new thrilling experiences. I wish I could say I never relapsed into mindless routines or lean too heavily on the crutches of easy entertainment or distractions. Alas, that is not the case. For better or worse, modern life requires one to fulfill certain mundane obligations and the modern world offers too many safe and comfortable escapes from the intensity of immediacy to boldly reject them all. What I've worked on and am still working on is finding a balance, living neither as Alexander the Great nor as the risk averse young man I used to be. But as someone in between, with enough excitement and adventure to keep me vital and engaged, enough risk and danger to keep Lady Helen young and alert, her shield only slightly tarnished and her hand still occasionally smeared with ink. Yet, with enough safety and stability, to be a good husband to Myla and a good father to our young son, thankfully during my listless periods, the little rascal gets into more than enough trouble to keep Lady Helen occupied. Despite being only three, he has already received two scrolls and I can't help seeing many more in his future. I look forward to the day when he's old enough for me to tell him what they mean. I wonder if he'll find them as strange as I still do. And I wonder what he'll make of the fact that for all the times Lady Helen kept me from death, it wasn't until I drove her crazy with my safe and boring existence that she truly saved my life.