Child of Light

“For once you were darkness, but now you are light. Live as children of light.” Ephesians 5:8

“Please read your statement aloud,” the detective instructed.

“Alright, I admit, I was the last to see her alive, but I didn’t kill Maggie. I’m not sure I can explain what happened, though, but I’ll try. She was in many ways the most remarkable person I’ve ever met. So, I think I owe it to her to tell her story, to the best of my ability. She’s gone now. That much is clear. Where she went – what she now is – is beyond my feeble understanding. I believe she’s not dead, no matter what you might think, and I don’t really care what you think. I have no doubt that some will make me out to be a liar while others will just call me crazy. Yet, it seems to me I’m a witness to something so important that I should be forever grateful to have witnessed it. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I was making the trip home after visiting my father as I had done every month for over a year. It was a three-state route, and there were three or four gas stations where I usually stopped to fill-up and make a personal pit-stop, depending on how the drive was going. That day I needed to stop for gas in western Pennsylvania – at an exit I never used before – there was a truck stop, with fast food and a convenience store. Not that the location matters, other than for the fact that I had no way of knowing I would pick up a stowaway there. And, no, I did not target this girl, nor did I force her into my car. The security cam would back me up, if it was working the way it should. All I can say is that nothing was pre-planned. I was as surprised as anyone when she showed up.

I filled up the car, moved it to a space near the building and went in to use the restroom and pick up some junk food. Peanut M&M’s and a little diet green tea – my staples for driving. I can’t stand greasy stuff on the wheel, or on the seats for that matter, and it’s hard to lose a brightly colored piece of candy when the interior of your car is black. And I’m positive no one was in the back seat when I got back in the car. I’d swear to it. I would have noticed something. And she was not dressed in black. I’d have an excuse if she had decided to go Goth, but she didn’t. She was pretty much the opposite of that – girl-next-door looks, red hair, little freckles, Green Lantern T-shirt and jeans, and a tan jacket, a well-worn windbreaker, to be exact, with old Sketchers sneakers – I’ll never forget the ensemble. She looked to be about 13 years old, but even college graduates look that way to me now, to tell you the truth. I can still picture her – an admixture of defiance and fear, confidence and hesitation. “Just drive,” she demanded. “Get me out of here or I’ll scream and say you abducted me.”

Given the fact that I didn’t know if she was armed or really needed help, I said as much as I could, “But I didn’t abduct you. How did you get into my car? What are you doing here?”

She said, “Just drive,” as she scrunched down in the back seat of my car, and added, “Don’t worry, I’ll explain everything.”

At the time, I thought either the girl was trembling, or I was having a panic attack. I tried to keep my heartbeat regular and my eyes on the road while watching her in the rear-view mirror. For a moment, I hoped she was a hallucination, which really would have meant I needed to have myself committed. Then I snapped out of that and realized she had just talked me into giving her a ride to God only knew where. As I got on the expressway, I figured something must be very wrong for this kid to put her life in the hands of an older male stranger. Then again, there was a possibility that I had just put my life in the hands of a psychopath or an accomplice to one. Whatever. I didn’t want an act of desperation to end badly. I reminded myself that uncertainty is a close cousin to fear and said a little prayer that fear would not take over and this child would keep her word and explain why she had chosen my car, out of all the cars at the Pilot that day.

After I had driven a few miles, my hitchhiker sat up and said, “Sorry. I had to get away.”

“Away from what? Are you running away from someone?” I paused. “Has someone hurt you? Should I call the police?”

She cut me off, “No police! If you call, I’ll tell them you took me and…”

“OK. No police. But I don’t believe you’ll tell them anything like that. I want to help you,” I said. “But you’re not helping me. Look, you are about the same age as my granddaughter would be, if I had one. Whatever happens, I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know you won’t ,” she said.

I’ll never forget the way she said the word, know. I was about to ask how she knew, but instead I asked, “Who or what are you trying to get away from?”

“I’m in a foster home and they don’t understand,” she answered. “They keep locking me up. They won’t let me go to school or anyplace else really. They think I’m some kind of…freak.”

“You don’t look like a freak,” I said using my best Monty Python imitation. She missed the reference, but she smiled weakly. It was a start. I asked her name.

“Maggie. It’s short for Margaret,” she said.

“Pleased to meet you, Mar-…Maggie,” I said. “I’d shake your hand, but you know, front seat, back seat.”

Then she blurted out, “That’s OK. Your name is Stephen, with a P-H.”

For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. Then I said, “How did you know that? Were you stalking me? Am I your mark or something?”

“No. No. No!” She cried. “That’s why they call me a freak. That’s one reason anyway. I have a sixth sense about people. I swear I didn’t know your name until just now, when you asked my name. When you did that, you couldn’t help but think about your name, so I got an impression of it. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… I mean, I should have asked, or waited until you introduced yourself.” Maggie fell silent.

“Let’s say I believe you have ESP or some kind of special insight,” To be honest, I was trying to humor her. If she was mentally disturbed, I didn’t want to trigger an outburst. I added, “Is that why you said you knew I wouldn’t hurt you?”

“Yes,” Maggie said. “And that’s why I got into your car.”

“About that,” I said. “How did you do that?”

“You’ll need to pull over somewhere out-of-sight, so I can show you,” she answered.

“Can’t you just explain it to me?” I asked.

“It would be better to just show you. But I don’t want you to have a wreck,” Maggie said.

I told her I’d keep an eye out for a place to pull off. I remembered some country roads coming up on State Road 30. I told myself to be patient. As I watched Maggie in the rear-view mirror, it seemed to me she was a normal teenager, maybe misunderstood, maybe troubled by the way her foster parents treated her, but probably just looking for someone to accept her. I’m no Fred Rogers, but I want to see the good in people, and that means giving them a chance. Maggie was either a very good actor, or a good kid who was reaching out to me for some reason. At that time, I many doubts, but I tried to keep an open mind about Maggie. Kids go through what they go through. I recall I had a lot to learn when I was her age. I had a lot of self-doubt and took to heart a lot of unkind words back then. We all want to be good enough, to feel like we are a part of things, in other words, to fit in. It’s hard even if you consider yourself “normal.” I could only imagine the reactions of those who believed Maggie’s ESP – if that’s what it was – made her a freak.

When I asked her where she was going, she said she didn’t know yet, but insisted that I “just keep driving.” I soon crossed a state line, so potential felony kidnapping was in my future. Nevertheless, I kept driving as she said, and hoped I could figure things out by the time I got home, if not before. Maggie fell asleep until we pulled off at the exit to go west through Ohio. I thought it was best not to disturb her, and somehow, I felt flattered that she had enough confidence in my driving to take a nap. She probably needed one.

I told Maggie I thought she was not a freak but she happened to be extremely perceptive. I explained how some people are good at picking up on subtle cues and can figure out other people’s moods and sometimes tell whether they are lying. Some even get pretty good at guessing names. I said these abilities may seem freakish, but they can be understood as natural gifts, like playing piano by ear or having a photographic memory. Others can learn to assess people’s emotions and character traits after studying their micro expressions. Then, I asked Maggie whether she believed she was a freak.

“I probably am,” she sighed, and added, “I didn’t tell you that I have more than a feeling about everyone I meet. From the moment I got within six feet of you I could tell what you were thinking and how you thought about the world – your attitude. You have certain principles, Stephen. Do you want to hear them?”

I offered Maggie my bag of Peanut M&M’s. “First, maybe could you tell me what other snack I considered buying?”

“That’s easy. Kit Kat Bars,” Maggie smiled.

“You could have watched me in the store,” I said.

“But I was outside the store,” she said. “Hiding behind the bushes to the right of your car. The police are looking for me. I’m officially missing. Do you want to hear your principles or not?”

At that point, I felt I should let her go on, so I nodded and said, “Alright, go ahead.”

“You believe you should live by an ethical code. You want to help people, not intentionally harm them. You believe you should live and let live rather than insist that others do things your way. You are conflicted about God but believe a higher power would always tell you to try to do the right thing. You believe that actions speak louder than words, that people should be given the benefit of the doubt, that life isn’t all about you and that it’s better to do good work than brag about being able to do it. You have little patience for people who exploit others or act like they know-it-all. Does this about cover it?”

I was stunned. I somehow managed to ask, “How could you know all that? I haven’t shared these hopes with anyone, at least not in so many words. And I’d call them ideals, not principles exactly…”

Maggie interrupted me, “because you believe you fall short of them?”

I sighed and said, “How is this possible?” Then, I told her, “I hope to God you can’t see everything in my head. I also have a lot of uncontrolled and possibly inappropriate thoughts. Thoughts that I certainly don’t want a 13-year-old to know.”

“I’m 15 and will soon be 16,” Maggie said matter-of-factly. “I can reach those thoughts, but not without a lot of conscious effort. I’m a very good lie detector. That’s why my foster family is afraid of me. I can also plant thoughts and feelings in people’s minds. I’m trying to be careful with that. Sometimes, I can’t help it though. If I get upset or angry…”

It was my turn to break in, “I understand. I was your age once and wanted to be able to turn things to my advantage, especially when I was angry. It’s part of growing up. We all want to retaliate, to get our way, even when we are wrong. But little by little we learn to keep things in perspective.”

Maggie said, “I’m getting better at it. Three years ago, when I started to get these…abilities…I could hardly control them. I tried to keep them to myself, but…”

“Let’s just call them gifts,” I said. “Here’s that exit I was thinking about.”

I pulled off the highway to a side road with a lane leading to a grove of trees. If I was the type to do harm to someone, that would have been an excellent spot, but as you know, Maggie was sighted sometime after that. Now, what you are about to hear may sound like a drug-induced delusion, but I will swear to it in any court in the country. When I was sure we were out of sight, I told Maggie it was time for her to show me how she got into my locked car. We got out and I made sure the doors were all locked. “Try not to have a stroke or a heart attack,” Maggie told me. She walked up to the rear passenger door, bent low and passed straight though it to the inside of the car. She turned to me and shrugged. I felt faint, but somehow managed to keep breathing. That was just about the last thing I could have imagined she might do. I clicked the key fob and opened the door. “You were right, Maggie,” I said. “If you had done something like that on the highway, I might have driven into a ditch.”

Maggie said, “Thank you for letting me show you. And for not losing it. I knew I’d picked the right person. But doing what I just did makes me pretty hungry. How about getting something more substantial than Peanuts dipped in chocolate?”

We got drive-through sandwiches a couple of exits later. It turned out both of us were OK with Arby’s. By the time we reached Indiana, Maggie was feeling true to form for a teenager. She asked if we could stop at a real restaurant and get a real meal. She told me it had been a long time – several years – since she had done that. I agreed. I knew a couple of places near Fort Wayne, and what was one more state line crossed with a runaway I had picked up at a truck stop?

We’d been in our booth for a few minutes when I noticed a photo of Maggie, apparently taken a few years ago, was being flashed across the TV screen, along with a missing person alert. Maggie saw it too and told me not to worry. But I saw a jail cell in my future. Maggie simply said, “You’re not going to jail, Stephen.”

The waitress played it cool. She asked if we were related. Maggie said I was her Grandpa and gently touched the woman’s hand. Then she said something I can’t forget. “Don’t you think he looks pretty hot for an older guy?” The waitress hardly paid any attention to Maggie from that point on. I never had a waitress flirt with me, but Sylvia couldn’t take her eyes off me. She ignored the wedding ring I kept waving in front of her. She even asked if I would be around when her shift ended. It was what some of my generation might call a “full court press.” To another generation, Maggie might qualify as “not the droid you are looking for.” I learned first-hand what she meant by her ability to control thoughts and moods. If she could make a younger woman interested in a not-so-hot Grandpa, she could easily induce someone to steal or even kill. No wonder Maggie was feared. But I didn’t fear her. I admired her self-control. She could have turned me into a zombie to do her bidding, yet she didn’t. She could have controlled everyone in her path but chose to get away instead. She told me the truth. She was never anything but who she was.

After we got back in the car, Maggie told me she needed to go to “the cataract between the lakes.” When I asked what she meant, she said, “You know, Niagara Falls.”

“That would be north on I-69,” I said, thinking about how that would take me the opposite direction from home. I was also thinking that we could have just turned north while we were still in Pennsylvania. And I was thinking about how I might need to smuggle Maggie across the border, making my crime international in scope.

I asked her why we needed to go there.

“I don’t know yet, Stephen,” she answered. “I believe we’ll find out when we get there. Please. I know everything will be fine. Try not to worry. And I’m sorry about not knowing sooner. It’s just that I don’t have much time.”

There was that word. I asked, “What do you mean?”

“Something is happening to me. Something beyond anyone’s control,” she said.

I told her I didn’t like the sound of that and asked if she was sick. She told me she wasn’t sick, but added, “I know I’m changing.” There was that word again.

What else could I have done? Take a girl with super powers to the police? Law enforcement has a poor track record with special people. And she could have caused them a lot of trouble if she wanted to. Besides, I couldn’t betray her trust like that. I felt I had to see this through. I called my wife and tried to explain. She wasn’t happy about my “passenger,” to say the least. Her exact words were, “You’re taking a missing girl to Canada. Are you out of your damn mind?” I tried to tell her what I’d seen. I’m still not sure she believed a word of it. Maggie got on the phone and thanked her for letting me help. Finally, she agreed to remain silent unless she hadn’t heard from me in 24 hours. She told me at that point all bets would be off. 

Maggie told me about her experiences in the foster system. She only had vague memories of her parents. She said they were killed when she was little. The only thing she could remember for certain was that they tried to teach her to “be good” and that no matter what, they loved her, and God loved her. They told her that she was their “miracle girl.” Maybe she was. In more ways than they thought. Maggie couldn’t remember exactly how they died, which was probably for the best. I told her that I believed they were trying to do something good, just as they taught her. She seemed to like that.

No matter how well-intentioned, sometimes substitute parents don’t act like the parents we deserve. In fact, the same is true of biological parents. It takes a certain set of convictions to make good parents. It sounded to me like Maggie’s parents were the good kind, as mine had been, mostly. She described a couple of her foster homes as “harmless” which I believe they mostly are. Hippocrates postulated that physicians should above all, “do no harm.” And Douglas Adams wrote that the inhabitants of Earth were described as “mostly harmless” in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I guess I’d settle for harmless, given the alternatives of neglect, resentment, hostility, and brutality. Until she was about 12, the system was mostly harmless. After that, no one really knew how to deal with her and the alternatives took over.

What struck me was that somehow, regardless of how she was treated, she had managed to learn a great deal and maintain a strong moral center. She was familiar with the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, and other wisdom literature. She had a good understanding of English, social studies, philosophy, and history and wasn’t bad at math and science. The kid had done well without attending school for a couple of years. I’d say better than most who spend a lot of time in the classroom. Maybe that was one of her gifts too. When I asked how she had done it, she just said, “the internet.” But I thought there had to be more to it than that. Her most recent parents were not much help. When I pressed her, she said she couldn’t tell me, other than that she believed she was being “guided” by someone or something who was watching over her. She felt the same way about meeting me. Maybe my stopping at an unusual place where she just happened to be hiding out and looking for someone to take her with them was not a coincidence. Maybe we crossed paths for a reason. I’m not comfortable in situations with a lot of “ifs,” but improbable or providential, we were riding in the same car towards one of the great wonders of the western hemisphere.

Nothing can prepare you for transporting a missing person who prefers to stay that way. I’ve seen a few movies about that, so I guessed that changes of clothing, hoodies, and dark glasses might have something to do with staying “under the radar” as the cliché goes. I already had a change of clothes for myself, and armed with Maggie’s size and preferences, I found a JC Penny that had what she needed. The cashier looked at me sideways when I bought a couple of young ladies’ outfits, shoes, underwear and all, but she seemed to buy the story about lost luggage on a trip to see the grandparents. If you provide enough details, most people believe you, even though the details don’t really make the story more probable. I couldn’t just come out and say I was helping a runaway get out of the country, much less describe her formerly latent abilities.

We had to stop overnight at a motel. That is, I had to stop. I was exhausted. There are only so many hours a Grandpa can drive in a day. And, I knew this was another potential felony. I was sure the cops would want to know why I was sharing a motel room with a minor. But at that point, I had no idea I would become a suspect in a murder investigation.

Again, the Grandpa story prevailed. Apparently, a grandfather taking his granddaughter to Cedar Point is common enough that nobody batted an eye. Then again, Maggie saw to it that the desk clerk paid attention to me. She said something about her rich Grandpa, a Fortune 500 retired executive, and we had offers of “anything that might make your stay more comfortable.” Again, she was not the droid anyone was looking for, it was only a rich guy and his lucky granddaughter on a nice road trip. Nothing to see but dollar signs. Did I mention I tipped Sylvia generously? Same for Sanjay.

Sharing a room with a near stranger of the opposite sex, more than fifty years younger was, well, strange. But something about travelling together reveals everything you need to know about a person. Maggie had a way of taking things in stride that was far beyond her years. Some of my friends have called young people like her, “old souls.” I’d never met anyone like her before. She had the wisdom of age and the innocence of youth. She had obviously already endured more than I could imagine, yet she held on to the hope that I, or someone like me, would help her. She had placed herself in my hands. Regardless of her ability to look inside my head, she chose to trust me, despite her fears. I chose to protect her as if she was my own. I decided no harm would come to her on my watch. You may think I killed her, but that was the opposite of my wishes. I would have given my life for her.

We talked about right and wrong, how she ought to use her gifts, how some people would try to take advantage of her and use her for their own purposes. She wanted to be good, as her parents had taught her – to do the right thing, an ideal she shared with me. But there remained the problem of her escape from the foster system. As much as I wanted her to come live with us, it seemed to me the criminal justice system would frown on the idea of a victim coming to live with her captor. I had painted myself into a corner. It was Niagara or nothing.

Maggie told me what she thought about faith. Her view was a lot like my own. If a person’s faith helps them become a better human being, more loving, more kind, more caring, more helpful, more like whatever higher power they believe is good, their faith is true regardless of what religion they claim to follow. It seems to me religion is supposed to help us transcend our personal desires and align our lives with something greater. Too often religion limits peoples’ faith to belief in a God circumscribed by their own narrow view of what they want him to be, not what he or she actually is. A God that transcends time and space must be infinitely larger than our individual wishes, and whatever pre-conceptions we have. For all we know, God might be pure energy, and the children of that God might be as well.

I went across the street to get a McBreakfast for us while Maggie was getting ready. So far, she hadn’t been identified, but I didn’t want to push our luck. I-90 is a relatively straight shot to Buffalo, so I had hopes of making it to the Falls without incident.

Someone must have spotted Maggie about the time we reached the Falls. Maggie told me we needed to take “The Maid of the Mist” and we barely made it on board before the police arrived. I knew they would be waiting when we docked, so no matter what I would have some explaining to do.

Maggie made her way to the bow of the boat. It was a sunny day and the combination of raw power from both the brilliant sun and the water cascading over the falls was awe-inspiring. Maggie motioned to me to join her. She spoke in my ear over the roar of the water, the engines, and the loudspeaker describing the view for all those who suffered from impaired imaginations.

She said, “I won’t forget you. Be true to yourself. It’s time.” Maggie hugged me. Then she just started to…dissolve. She faded away into the mist and the rays of the sun that shone through. I’m sure it looked like I pushed her overboard, but I didn’t. I tried to hang on, to hold her back. She didn’t have to tell me to let go. There was no way I, or anyone else, could have held her. I don’t know what she became, but even if I go to prison, I will insist she is now a child of light. She is no longer a part of this world.

The police arrested me when the boat docked. This is my statement.”

“Please sign here,” Detective Wright pointed to the bottom of the page.

“OK. Here you go.”

“Wait here.” The detective left the room.

“You left out quite a lot, Stephen,” Maggie said.

“Maggie! I’m not going to ask how. But why?”

“Because I said I wouldn’t forget you and because you’re not going to jail, Stephen.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“They can see me through the one-way glass. Someone will be here soon to make sure this isn’t a trick. Remember, we talked about how some bonds are ultimately stronger than blood? You told me about how your wife was adopted and the spiritual bond between her and her adoptive parents was just as strong as any biological bond.”

“But what does that have to do with us?”

“Bonds of the spirit are meant to endure. Even though I now belong to the immaterial world, you are as connected to me as any parent would be. In fact, all people are connected through the spirit, or at least they can be, if they truly want to be.”

“How did you get in here?” the detective demanded.

“You’ve heard Stephen’s statement. How do you think?”

“Obviously, someone snuck you in here while I wasn’t looking.”

“And while no one else at this station was looking? How many people did I need to pass on the way in here?”

“At least 35.”

“And you believe they were all looking the other way? How likely is that? If someone can walk all the way from the main entrance to this interrogation room without being noticed, it seems to me a lot of people might be in danger of losing their jobs.”

“I don’t know how else to explain it.”

“I think you do, Detective. And so does the Lieutenant in the next room. So, here is what I want you to do. Please walk Stephen and me through the station in front of everyone. And then send him on his way, and I will be on my way. Everyone here is free to observe.”

Detective Wright did as Maggie requested. As she stepped out of the door, in front of at least two dozen police officers, she…dissolved into the light of day.