An angel watching over her

Michael tried not to overuse his faery spirit, as even though he was benevolent and helpful, faery magic is notoriously unreliable and frequently leads to unforeseen quirks and mishaps.

Michael persevered in life without faery aid, progressing in his career through hard work, judicious judgement and a certain natural wit and charm. The same charm and wit, combined with a rugged appearance that women considered handsome, won him the hand of a wife both attractive and intelligent. They were blessed with two children and a large house in a fashionable area of a fashionable city.

One morning, as Michael and his wife breakfasted, his wife told him that an angel had been watching over her while she slept.

“It must have been a dream,” he said.

“Oh no,” his wife protested. “I woke up. I was frightened at first, seeing a strange figure standing over me, but I soon realised he was benign, an angel no less, and knowing he was there watching over me, I returned to sleep and slept sounder than I have ever slept.”

Michael would happily have forgotten this conversation ever happened, but the next morning his wife again claimed to have spent the night in the company of an angel.

“I’m afraid she’s going mad, all this talk of seeing angels,” he said later that evening, to his faery spirit. “I worry for her.”

“Maybe there really is an angel visiting her,” the faery suggested. “I’ve heard of it happening. Why don’t I spend tonight by her bed, looking out for angelic visitations?”

“What an excellent idea,” Michael said. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“Not at all. I’ve never met an actual angel, I’ve always wondered what they’re like.”

And so the faery spirit visited Michael’s wife that night, looking and listening for angels. He also cast spells of detection, but he neither saw, heard nor detected a single angel, a fact which he reported to Michael first thing the next morning.

So Michael was most surprised when his wife again claimed that she had seen an angel watching over her all night.

“I don’t understand it,” he said to his faery spirit later that day, “She seems completely sane, there’s nothing else odd about her at all, she just claims to be seeing angels when you’ve confirmed there are no angels.”

“Well,” said the faery, who always saw the best in everyone, “It is possible that the angel did visit the first two nights, but such is the power of an angelic visitation the image remained with her last night.”

“It’s possible I suppose,” Michael sighed, “but we can never know.”

“On the contrary,” the faery said, “it’s the easiest thing in the world for me to check, as I’m capable of time travel. I just pop back to the night of the first visitation and see if there’s an angel there. When was it?”

“Tuesday night. Would you mind? It’s awfully kind of you.”

“Nothing would please me more.” So saying the faery clicked his fingers and was back in Tuesday night, standing by Michael’s wife’s bedside. He looked for angels, he cast spells of detection and he listened intently, but he saw nothing, detected nothing and heard not so much as a single angelic mouse.

“Well she must be imagining the whole thing then,” Michael said, when the faery reported back. If you’ve checked there was no angel there on Tuesday night.”

“Don’t be so hasty,” the faery said, “It is possible that the angel visited on Wednesday night. The power of the visitation might have been so strong that it affected her memory of the previous night, angelic magic is very powerful. I’ll go and check.”

And so the faery travelled back in time to Wednesday night, and again stood by her bedside looking, listening and casting spells.

“Well?” asked Michael, as the faery reappeared.

“No, nobody, nothing, not one angel of any description.”

Michael was determined to get to the root of the mystery and sent the faery back to his wife’s bedside that night, and every night for the rest of her life. The faery never once detected an angel, yet every morning his wife claimed to have spent the night watched over by an angel.

The mystery was never solved.