Crossroads

by Amy Jarvis


​What remained of raindrops danced across her skin, tracing over each other and refusing to be completely straight.  Grace could feel tears threatening to stain her eyes, but made no move to wipe them away.  Instead, she pulled down her jacket sleeves, covering the reminder of what had brought her into the woods in the first place.  Her footsteps on the damp, fallen leaves were muffled underneath her as she made her way through the dense trees, with only the full moon slicing through the branches to guide her.  From somewhere in the distance, what sounded like an animal howling startled her. Trying to ignore the nagging feeling of trepidation, Grace convinced herself she wouldn’t have to walk much farther from the beaten path.  Several minutes later, Grace stopped dead when she realized she had come to an iron fence that wrapped around the outline of cement blocks.  Old railroad tracks twisted through the woods beyond the cemetery, crossing over each other and disappearing in different directions, possibly leading nowhere.  She slipped through the gate, walking through what appeared to be a mist-filled cemetery that had been abandoned years ago.  
 
What couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes before, Grace had pulled her car into the empty parking lot outside of the nature preserve.  Loose gravel had shifted underneath her tires, echoing through her mind.  They would find her car, she had thought to herself, but it would probably take a few days before they found her body.  She wondered if her hair would be tangled around her face, her skin covered in caked on mud and devoid of any color besides ghostly white.  She could only hope her father, the only person she wanted to believe cared, would forgive her.
 
The tombstones were barely recognizable, their pieces crumbling underneath them.  The writing, meant to memorialize souls, had hardly withstood time.  Grace leaned close to one, deciphering what she thought said 1864.  A chill crept underneath her skin, but she doubted it was from the cold.  A mausoleum stood towards the center of the cemetery.  The outline of a cross on the rooftop seemed to burn into her, and she contemplated the irony of spending her last moments inside something dedicated to the afterlife.  Swallowing, she made her way towards it.  Writing was etched into the stone above the heavy wooden door, but she couldn’t quite make it out.  As she pulled it open, the door let out a groan that echoed through the woods behind her.  She glanced over her shoulder, aware that if anyone was around, they obviously would have heard it.  Moonlight filtered in behind her, through the window and cracks in the cement, welcoming her.  The entire mausoleum seemed to be covered with a layer of age, complete with dust and grime that edged along the stone walls.  Cobwebs brushed against her skin, and she resisted the urge to cry out.  Several wooden benches were placed in crooked rows, and a statue of an angel stood in the corner, its vacant, hollow eyes staring into her.  Candles stood against the far wall on what appeared to be an altar, dried wax pooled around them, their wicks charred.  She quickly searched her pockets for a lighter without any luck.  Below it, draped with what remained of dried flower petals so fragile they were practically see-through, stood a coffin.  She took a few steps forward, determined to figure out what she had stumbled upon, when footsteps mirroring hers came from behind her.
 
“What are you doing in here?” a deep voice asked.
 
Grace turned, swallowing the scream that caught in her throat.  A silhouette leaned against the doorway.  Shadows masked most of his features, but from what she could tell, he didn’t seem much older than her, and he wasn’t dressed in clothing like she was accustomed to.  Instead, he was draped in what appeared to be a duster that hung down to heavy leather shoes.  She took several steps back, smacking against the base of the coffin and knocking a few flower petals to the cement ground.  In the several seconds it took to steady herself and ignore the nausea that came from losing blood, she found her voice.
 
“I didn’t realize I wasn’t supposed to be,” she managed to say.
 
“I never said that,” he responded, crossing his arms.
 
She glanced around with every intention of finding another way out, only to realize that he was blocking her only escape.  He watched her from the doorway, but made no move to come inside.  
 
“What are you doing here?” he repeated.
 
Grace looked back over at him, realizing that whatever was about to happen, there wasn’t much she could do to prevent it.  She had wandered out into the middle of nowhere, and now she was inside a cemetery that looked like it had been abandoned for years.  No one would ever find her if anything bad was to happen, and she was okay with it.  That had been her plan all along, anyway.  With that thought in mind, she lowered herself down onto the nearest bench, grime seeping into her pants.  She clasped her hands together on her lap and studied them, trying to come up with an answer.
 
“I came out here to think,” she said. 
 
“You’re a good liar. Now why are you really here?”
 
She looked over her shoulder, noticing that he had taken a few steps into the mausoleum.  The door closed behind him, sealing her fate with it.  Grace watched as he made his way down the aisle in several long strides.  He knowingly went directly to a matchbook on the altar, lighting the candles before sitting down on the bench across from her. 
 
“What are you doing out here? Do you normally walk around the woods at night?” Grace asked, a note of sarcasm in her voice.
 
“I own the property,” he said calmly.
 
She felt an “oh” form on her lips, but she wasn’t quite sure it made it into the space between them. 
 
“Are you going to answer me?”  he asked.
 
“I messed up,” she said.
 
Grace was referring to her life in general, but her response still caught her off guard.  For a second she considered that she was telling the truth.  There was always the possibility that things could get better.  She choked at the thought, swearing at herself that she was beginning to sound like her therapist, who probably repeated the same things to everyone with depression for the money.   Nothing was going to get better and she knew it.  For a second, it looked as though he had stifled a laugh.
 
“Do you want to talk about it?”
 
She shook her head, trying to figure out what was going on.  From what she could tell through the veiled window near the entrance, he had started a fire outside of the mausoleum.  She vaguely remembered walking past a crumbled pile of cement bricks outside, and figured they served as a fire pit.  It made sense; November in Virginia had a tendency to be cold enough to need it.  She watched as the glowing embers faded outside of the window, disappearing into the cascade of night sky. 
 
“Who are you, anyway?” Grace asked.
 
“Does it matter?” he asked.
 
“I suppose not,” she responded.
 
“You still haven’t answered my question,” he said.
 
“What are you here for, the company?” she retorted.
 
“Not tonight,” he said.
 
They fell into silence for several minutes, with only the sound of a draft attempting to come in underneath the rotting door to make them feel like they weren’t alone.  Grace cleared her throat, knowing that she wasn’t going to be able to get out of explaining why she had stumbled into the woods to begin with.  That and she needed someone to talk to.  It didn’t matter that she had absolutely no idea who he was, or what had brought him into the woods that night.  She could feel him studying her as she stumbled over the details.  She was beginning to feel dizzy, her eyelids heavy.  The air around them seemed to thin as she finished, still unable to look over.
 
“Let me get this straight,” he said, holding a hand up and folding his fingers as he counted off everything Grace had told him.  “Drunken quarterback douchebag tried to rape you, mom left, dad blames you, you didn’t get into Ivy League, and this is somehow your fault?”
 
“It’s more complicated than that,” she said, her voice almost breaking.
 
“I’m listening,” he said.
 
“It doesn’t matter.  I’m going to die out here, anyway,” she said.
 
“What makes you so sure you’re going to die?”
 
His question was a reminder of why she had wandered out there to begin with.  She removed her jacket, uncovering the bloodstains that had seeped into the fabric, covering her wrists with dark red.  She had told herself the unforgiving razor she had selected was sharp enough that she would barely feel anything as she tore it across her wrist, slicing her skin and allowing blood to flow down her arm like a painting.  Her teeth grasped her bottom lip, her eyes narrowed into slits. With the drops that landed beneath her, she had counted off every point that brought her to the decision as she turned to the opposite wrist. 
 
“Jesus Christ,” he said.
 
“Guess it’s worse than I thought,” she said, forcing a laugh.
 
Without asking, he tore the bottom of her jacket, quickly tying the shredded fabric around her wrists.  She allowed herself to relax a touch as the pressure took some of the pain away.  She could feel blood escaping from underneath it, and took a few breaths to steady herself.  As if fate had accepted her decision, a slight drizzle, the remnants of an earlier rainstorm, had kept her wrists from clotting.  The cuts weren’t as deep as she had intended; otherwise she would’ve blacked out already.  Still, Grace knew it was possible to bleed for hours before it even became life threatening.  She shifted on the bench underneath her, preparing to settle in for a while.
 
“Why didn’t you ask someone for help?” he asked.
 
“No one would understand,” she said.
 
She could feel his eyes burning into her, but couldn’t bring herself to look over.  Instead, she wiped her hand off on her jeans, leaving a streak of dark red blood from her thigh to just above her knee.
 
“So you decided that dying would be the better option?” it didn’t sound like a question.
 
“No,” she said. “Not better. Just easier.”
 
“What could possibly make you say that? Life isn’t supposed to be easy,” he said.
 
“Don’t lecture me.”
 
Even though she hadn’t meant to snap, Grace felt a sort of satisfaction when he flinched. 
 
“I wasn’t trying to. I’m just saying you’re not alone,” he said.
 
“Do you have a name?” she asked.
 
“Call me John.”
 
The name struck her for a second.  When she was younger, her father had taken her to church.  The book of John reminded her of love, something she didn’t want to think about.  Once her mother had left, her father ignored her as if she was a constant reminder of the woman that had abandoned them.  She looked back over at him, noticing he looked older than she expected him to be; like life had worn away at him without giving time a chance to.  Still, she figured early twenties was probably accurate.
 
“John. Are you some type of saint or something?” she asked.
 
He laughed without humor. “Not even close.”
 
“Good. Because I wouldn’t believe you if you were,” she said. “Even if you are here to help me figure things out.”
 
“What makes you say that?” he asked.
 
“Why else would you be out here?” she asked.
 
“Maybe because I own the land, remember? So, I take it you’re not religious.”
 
Grace shook her head, shifting on the bench underneath her.  A sliver caught onto her shirt, and she pulled it loose before it slipped into her skin.  She looked back towards the altar, at the candles that had somehow managed to stay lit as they burned down to their bases.  In between them, pushed back against the wall and draped in intricate cobwebs and dust, stood a tarnished cross.  She turned back towards him, feeling a chill creep down her spine.
 
“What do you believe in?”
 
John seemed to consider her question for a second.  His brow creased and he looked over at the cross before turning his attention back to her.
 
“There must be something else out there that’s bigger than you and me,” he started.
 
Grace gritted her teeth.  “Oh come on. Enough with the cosmic bullshit.” 
 
“Fine. I believe in God,” John said.
 
“That’s not what I was expecting,” she responded.
 
“Why? You’re so desperate to believe in hell because you think it’ll serve you justice. You’re forgetting something.  It’s not the devil that makes the judgments, sweetheart. That’s up to someone else.”
 
“Fuck you.”
 
His dark eyes sliced hers.
 
“You’re only saying that because you know I’m right,” he said.
 
“What’s your point in telling me this?” she asked.
 
“I wasn’t finished. If there’s truth to what we’ve been taught…” he said before pausing, obviously trying to figure out what he wanted to say.
 
Grace thought about his words for a second.  She was suddenly conscious of the angel statue that stood in the corner of the mausoleum, holding something.  She couldn’t quite remember what it was, but found herself unable to turn around.  She figured it was probably a bible, and decided to leave it at that.
 
“Hell is exactly where I’m heading,” she finished for him.
 
“Not necessarily,” he said.
 
“What makes you so sure?” Grace asked.
 
She looked over at the cross and fought the urge to approach the altar long enough to brush the filth from it.  For some reason, it bothered her that it wasn’t clean.
 
“Forgiveness is a hell of a concept.”
 
“I swear if you tell me to repent-” she started.
 
“I’m not telling you to do anything. I’m saying God forgives,” John said.
 
“After tonight it won’t make a difference, will it?” she asked.
 
“That’s for you to decide,” he said. “For what it’s worth, you deserve better.”
 
John pulled up his sleeve, checking a silver watch that was clasped around his wrist.  Candlelight reflected off of it, but she couldn’t make out what it said. He seemed to let out a breath before looking back over at her.
 
“It’s almost midnight,” John said.
 
“You have somewhere to be?” she asked.
 
He shook his head. “No. I just can’t stay for much longer.”
 
John stood up from the bench, wrapping the duster tighter around him before making his way towards the exit, his footsteps almost silent.  Grace made to follow him, unsure of whether or not she should.  When he reached the door, John looked back over at her, the ghost of a smile on his lips.
 
“For the record, it’s not easier,” he said.
 
“What’s not easier?”  Grace asked.
 
“Dying,” John said. “Go home, Grace. Forgive yourself.”
 
She waited several minutes after his footsteps had faded away before changing her mind.  She needed to know more about what had brought him there, if she would ever see him again.
 
“Wait,” she said.
 
Grace stumbled to the entrance of the mausoleum, leaning against the cold cement for support.  The fire outside had somehow gone out, but the lingering smoke still burned her throat.  She considered calling for him, but from what she could tell, he had disappeared through the fog that surrounded what she now thought of as the entrance to hell. She could see nothing from the railroad.  Nothing but the dust and rubble of echoes that had long been forgotten along the old, rusted tracks.