Leslie Rule - Where Angels Tread: Real Stories of Miracles and Angelic Intervention

Coast to Coast Ghosts: True Stories of Hauntings Across America

Ghosts Among Us: True Stories of Spirit Encounters

When the Ghost Screams: True Stories of Victims Who Haunt

Ghost in the Mirror: Real Cases of Spirit Encounters

Where Angels Tread copyright 2011 by Leslie Rule. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC

an Andrews McMeel Universal company

1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106

www.andrewsmcmeel.com

E-ISBN: 9781449408022

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011926186

A TTENTION : S CHOOLS AND B USINESSES

Andrews McMeel books are available at quantity discounts with bulk purchase for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail the Andrews McMeel Publishing Special Sales Department:

This book is dedicated to

Ross Avi Krinsky,

with amazement at your brilliance, admiration for
your courage, and gratitude for your friendship.

I think Ive always had an affinity for angels, one that goes back far before I can possibly remember. I have a wonderful childhood memory that happened in Ann Arbor, Michigan, when our teacher picked the cast for the third-grade portion of the all-school Christmas pageant at Bach Elementary School.

All the girls in our class were to be angels who wore long white gowns, which were fairly easy for even the clumsiest of our mothers to sew. They simply had to stitch up a few seams in white bedsheets to make costumes suitable for temporary angels.

But three of us would have wings! All of us longed for that honor, and somehow I became one of the chosen three. Very lifelike white-feathered wings were firmly attached to our waists and shoulders by gold cords that crisscrossed our little flat chests. Janet Blakney, Joyce Alber, and I were the angels who surrounded the baby Jesuss crib, and it was only fitting that we had wings. If the teaching staff had decided to lower us, wings fluttering, by wires from the stage ceiling, I was ready and willing to do that.

But there were questions of safety and expense. We would hover only in our imaginations and, we hoped, in those of the enthusiastic audience of parents and brothers and sisters.

I still have the photos taken that frigid December night. In most of them, I am peeking out at the crowd when I was supposed to keep my eyes lowered. I couldnt help it; I loved being an angel with wings and wanted to see how impressed my parents and brother were.

Maybe all happy children feel that they have special angels looking after them. My father, Chester Stack Stackhouse, was deeply religious, and I learned Bible stories long before I went to kindergarten. I never doubted them.

I met an angel onceor she met me. I never truly saw her, but I know she saved my life. I survived an experience two years before the night I woreand sadly gave back to Bach Schools cache of costumesmy angel wings. I was six years old and in the first grade in another elementary school, this time in Saginaw, Michigan. I was allowed to walk home by myself because there were school safety patrol guards for the first two crossings. It was only two more short blocks to my house. There was one fairly busy crosswalk and one quieter crossing for me to negotiate. Usually there were several of us, and some were older kids in the fifth and sixth grade. But even when I was alone, I knew neighbors all along the way who looked out for me every afternoon.

To me, it was a magical neighborhood. Once, we were supposed to take a pint of pretend milk to school for a nutrition display. My mom, Sophie, mixed white shoe polish with water and poured it into an empty bottle, and it looked very real. Unfortunately, I spilled it as I passed Mrs. Williss house. When she saw me crying in distress, Mrs. Willis came out and insisted I take a real pint of milk from her refrigerator.

Another time, as I passed her house, a squirrel dashed out from her yard and jumped on my shoulder. It was a tame squirrel. Mrs. Willis had raised it from the time it was an orphaned baby. Seeing how delighted I was at the thought of finding a squirrel who liked me, she gave him to me. He was a cherished pet for several years, although he once ran up my Grandmother Hansens leg. She didnt know about my squirrel pet, and she did a dance that no one could forget!

Along with my squirrel, my milk replacement, cookies, and hugs, I always felt Mrs. Willis would take care of meno matter what happened.

But it wasnt Mrs. Willis who saved me from almost certain death. As it happened one day in October, all the other kids from Hoyt School who lived near me had left me behind. I wasnt afraid of walking home alone. I didnt knowand my parents didnt knowthat my eyesight was marginal. I was nine before I asked my mother why people liked movies when they couldnt see anything but shadows on the screen. For me, it was like listening to the radio, and I could do that at home.

I didnt even know that most people could see clearly all the way across the street. They could read signs! What I had never seen didnt exist for me. I must have adjusted to my myopia, so much so that no one realized I was almost legally blind.

Horrified by my questions about movie shadows, my mother took me to an ophthalmologist. After tests, he told her that I was profoundly nearsighted. I couldnt even see the big E on the eye chart.

But that was three years after my angel lifted me out of harms way. I think its quite possible that I never told my mother about my close call. I may have been embarrassed. I may have been in shock. I dont remember now.

Even today, I vividly recall standing on the corner of the busy street that I needed to cross to get to Mrs. Williss block. Id been taught, Use your eyes, use your ears, and THEN you use your feet when it came to crossing streets. And I reminded myself of that every time I had to cross streets.

I looked both ways and listened carefully, and the street appeared to be free of trafficat least to me. I couldnt see any cars coming. I started across. When I was in the middle of the street, I heard a loud engine and became aware of a large, dark vehicle that was way too close to me.

I still recall the sense of danger I felt. There was no place to run. I simply closed my eyes and stood still.

Next, I heard a WHOOSH and felt a sudden wind that was strong enough to spin me around.

The next thing I knew, I was standing on the opposite corner. I had no idea how I got there. I didnt know then, and I dont know now. I know only that I was safe on the opposite curb. I know something picked me up, lifted me away from danger, and then deposited me, unscathed, on the curb next to Mrs. Williss house.

When Ann Rule was a little girl, this pair of angels watched over her as she dreamed.