What's on the Other Side of a Threshold Guardian?

"Three Women: The Mechanics of Grace"

I have a slasher-editor. She is not real—as in the sense of a being in the world—but she is real inside of me. I developed her in response to my mother when I was young. My slasher-editor’s job has been to erase me and my work before anyone gets a chance to look at it, or appreciate it. I have come to understand that she is trying to protect me. For the longest time I didn’t believe that, but my therapist has finally convinced me.

My slasher-editor is a threshold guardian. This is a term Joseph Campbell used in his description of the hero’s journey. In his book “The Writer’s Journey”, Christopher Vogler describes a threshold guardian like this: “All heroes encounter obstacles on the road to adventure. At each gateway to a new world there are powerful guardians at the threshold, placed to keep the unworthy from entering. They present a menacing face to the hero, but if properly understood, they can be overcome, bypassed, or even turned into allies…Threshold guardians who appear to be attacking may in fact be doing the hero a huge favor…Threshold Guardians are not to be defeated but incorporated (literally, taken into the body)…Ultimately, fully evolved heroes feel compassion for their apparent enemies and transcend rather than destroy them.

So—I guess I am the hero in this tale. I never used to give myself such a title. But I have learned, through writing, and through the slasher-editor loosening her grip, that I am in fact a hero, no different than any other being on this planet. I must live out my story.

My story just happens to include the three characters who showed up behind me one day at the computer. Margot, Rae, and Grace. Of course, I did not know their names when they arrived. I just sensed their presence. They would not leave me alone.

I wrote a lot during the pandemic—1,000 words a day—and I was left with hundreds of thousands of words to deal with. I revised and edited all the pages I wrote, and now I have finished pages ready to be put together.

So, that is where I am at the present moment. A friend helped me understand that it is time. That I must go back and put this work together. I agree. I can’t leave the characters dangling. I’ve been talking about the story of this novel. It’s an important one, and I believe it needs to get out into the world. I believe that’s part of the reason it was given to me.

So this is the story of the novel, as far as I understand it: There is a narrator—Margot—who runs into Rae—the protagonist—at the local grocery store. Margot feels compelled to get to know Rae, to help Rae, to understand Rae. We don’t know why she feels so compelled. Neither does she. But she can’t walk away.

It’s pretty clear that Rae is a tremendously fragile woman. Something—or many things—have happened to her to make her this way. We don’t know any of the details—and neither does Rae, for sure.

Margot and Rae get to be friends, and finally Rae asks Margot to come work at her home. Rae has a young child at home. She’s a single mother. Of course we instantly feel very afraid for that child. I can’t decide what the child’s name should be. I still have to work on that. But probably the main reason why Rae asks Margot to come work for her, is because Rae desperately needs a friend. Rae is all alone and very troubled, and she probably doesn’t feel completely comfortable just having a friend. She has to think of it in terms of hiring Margot.

But Margot doesn’t really think of Rae as anything but a friend. And she decides to come to work for Rae because she feels she must help her. It gets to be a little annoying as we go along in the novel, why Margot feels such a desire to help. It makes us wonder about Margot’s character. What kinds of trauma might she be hiding in her past? And that’s a valid thing to wonder.

Margot works for Rae. She does household chores, cooks, takes care of the daughter at times. And Margot and Rae regularly sit down and have coffee during her breaks. They talk. As time goes on, something miraculous and unexpected occurs. Margot witnesses a sort of alternate personality in Rae. This personality I have named Grace. When Grace shows up, Rae’s personality kind of fades into the background. Grace tells Margot about what happened to Rae as a child.

Rae had a severely traumatic childhood, and Grace tells us all about it. Turns out, Grace is some kind of angelic being. She has superpowers. And in the telling of Rae’s history, Grace heals Rae’s trauma. Scene by scene, Grace uses her magical powers—first to illuminate and then to heal. We hear about horrendous scenes with Rae’s father in the basement, then about a cruel and absent mother. The more Margot hears, the more empathy she develops for Rae.

Finally, it becomes clear that this is why Margot was brought here. The universe has conspired to heal Rae—using Margot and Grace. For we realize it is necessary that we have all three characters in order to heal Rae. Thus I have named the novel “Three Women: The Mechanics of Grace”. This is a pretty good name, I think, although I reserve the right to change my mind about it.

So—my job now, as I see it, is to read through my edited work and piece it together. After listening to my description of this novel, my friend said I simply must get it out there, it might help someone. And I think that’s really true. It’s time.