The Three Wise Guides Read Free

said aloud.
    “Yes you
did,” the voice replied. “You looked back at your family, you saw their pain,
and you choose to leave the warmth and come back.”
    Mary opened
her eyes and looked at the bench.   The
air seemed to shimmer in front of her and a figure appeared for a moment on the
bench and then disappeared.
    “Believe you
can see me, Mary,” he said.
    She rubbed
her hands over her eyes and looked again.   The shimmering occurred again, but this time the figure stayed
visible.   Sitting on the bench was an old
man dressed in a worn woolen overcoat and a red stocking cap.   A white beard encircled his face and his nose
was bulbous and red.   His eyebrows were
thick and grew out in every direction, and his eyes were faded blue.
    “Who are
you?” she asked.
    He stood and
glided over to her. “I’m Gabe. Gabe Fleischmann. And I’m one of your guides.”
    “My guides?”
she asked.
    “Have you
always had a problem repeating what other people say?” Gabe asked.
    “Only when
I’ve been confused beyond comprehension,” she replied.
    Gabe smiled
and nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. “Come on, let me
introduce you to the other two.”
    “Two?”
    He raised a
shaggy eyebrow and looked at her.
    “Okay, I’ll
try to stop it,” she said. “But two?”
    “Yeah, we’re
the three wise guides,” he said with a soft chuckle. “For some reason, He likes
to do things in threes.”

Chapter Four
    Walking
through the park and talking with Gabe, Mary learned a great deal more about
her new calling.
    “So, I’m
supposed to help dead people figure out why they haven’t moved on?” Mary asked.
    “Yeah, that
just about sums it up,” he said.
    “But there
could be dozens of reasons, hundreds of reasons,” she said. “How am I supposed
to figure it out?”
    “You’re the
cop, aren’t you?   Almost
detective right?”
    “Yeah, well,
until I started hearing voices,” she said with a sigh. “The force frowns on
detectives with psychosis.”
    Gabe laughed
loudly and Mary glanced around, hoping no one would hear him. “ Shhhh ,” she cautioned.
    “Mary, no
one can hear me but you,” he said. “And those voices are just ghosts trying to
get your attention.”
    She stopped
in the middle of the sidewalk. “What?”
    “There are
ghosts all around us,” he said. “Spirits who are stuck here because of
something they’ve done or something someone’s done to them. They want to cross
over.   When word got out that you were
recruited to help, well, there’s been a little excitement in the Spirit World.”
    “Word got
out?   How in the world, I mean the Spirit
World, does word get out?”
    “The spirits
are drawn to you. They know you can help,” he said. “And in a place like
Chicago, you’re going to get lots of attention. It can be a little
overwhelming.”
    Shaking her
head, she met his eyes. “How can I do all of this?” she asked. “I mean, I’ve
been on investigations before and it takes a lot of work. How do I balance my
real job and doing this?”
    “God has a
way of working things out,” Gabe said. “Just have a little faith and go with
the flow.”
    “Go with the
…” Mary began, but was cut off by Gabe.
    “Well, here
they are now,” he said looking out across the park.
    Mary
followed his gaze and, at first, didn’t see anything but snow, trees and empty
park benches. She took a deep breath and concentrated. Finally, the air began
to shimmer and she saw two men, about the same age as Gabe, approaching.   One man was a tall African-American with a
scarred leather bomber jacket over his thin frame and loose khaki pants.   His face was clean shaven and his hair was
gray.   The other man was shorter and
dressed in jeans and a sheepskin-lined canvas jacket.   His hair was nearly black and cut in a short
well-trimmed style. His skin was slightly dusky and Mary assumed he was
American-Indian.
    “It’s about
time you two decided to show up,” Gabe teased. “Mary, these are