1

He stood in the center of the crossroads, breath casting a white cloud against the cold night air. There were no street lights, no buildings, and no headlights for miles, except those from his own car, which were illuminating the intersection. He glanced off into the trees, where his buddies faces were illuminated by their phones. They were laughing at his paranoia, hoping to catch a humorous video that might boost their reputation a bit at school, even if it meant throwing a friend under the metaphorical bus. The crossroads summoning was just a game, of course. Like Bloody Mary, or messing with a Spirit board. It was more a matter of how long a person could hold out before pissing themselves in unreasonable panic.

He pulled a coin from deep within his coat pocket, and flipped it over in his fingers. It felt so warm against the contrast of the cool air. He scooted some dirt aside with the toe of his boot, dropped the coin in the shallow hole, and covered it up. He looked in all four directions of the road; nothing. But it took him a moment to realize that there was too much nothingness. That the formerly rustling leaves had calmed to complete silence. That the hushed giggling of his mildly intoxicated friends had ceased entirely. That not even the remaining crickets of the season were chirping in a last-ditch effort to get laid before the snows started.

“There are a lot of legends about how to summon a Dealmaker.”

He jumped at the sound of the voice that was so close behind him the warm breath tickled the back of his neck. He spun on his heels, tripped over his own feet and fell to the ground. The headlights weaved a halo around a pea-coat shaped shadow. The dark figure walked a circle around him, without making any effort to help him up, and continued speaking.

“Bury a coin; say a spell; something about graveyard dirt and a bone from a black cat. The one consistency is that is must be done at a crossroads, which is only an interesting half-truth.”

The figure was behind him now, finally illuminated by the headlights. A young woman with her hands in the pockets of a charcoal coat, black suede boots up past her knees, and short locks of dark hair peeking out from beneath a blood-red cap. She was washed out by the light, a grayish cast dulling all of her, but brightening the flecks of amber in her dark eyes so that they almost glowed.

“I’ll tell you a secret, though. All you really need to do is show up… and want it.” A smirk spread across her face as she leaned over to offer him a hand. “And you are two for two.”

Hesitantly, he accepted her outstretched hand, barely taking time to notice the cross-shaped mark between her thumb and pointer finger.

“I… I didn’t think… This is just supposed to be a game,” he stuttered, voice cracking.

“Speaking of which,” she said, shoving her thumb in the direction of his buddies hiding in the woods, “your friends over there talked someone into coming up the road in a few minutes to scare the s**t out of you. Kind of a dick move, if you ask me.”

His eyes shifted from her for the first time, looking up to where his friends were hiding, wondering why they hadn’t come down to his rescue, or even made a startled sound at the sudden apparition of a strange woman in the middle of nowhere. After a few moments, he realized they weren’t moving at all, their unblinking faces frozen in the bluish light of their phones. The silence and stillness that surrounded him suddenly became very apparent, and weighed down his gut like lead.

“Oh, they have no idea I’m here,” she explained nonchalantly, pulling a scratched black pocket-watch from her coat. “Time is much more flexible in liminal spaces. That’s what the whole ‘crossroads’ thing is all about,” she said with a confident wink. “For them, time will mesh directly from the moment before I arrived into the moment after I leave.”

“My friends have done this tons of times,” he said, voice airy in awe. “No one’s ever said it actually worked. It’s just… a myth.”

“A myth,” she chuckled. “If you look hard enough, you’ll find all myths are rooted in truth. Your friends didn’t really want it, you see. You, however,” she said, squinting a bit as she eyed him from toes to top, “You have a deal to make.”

A lump rose up from his heavy stomach and lodged itself firmly in his throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Well, then,” she said, glancing at her watch once more before dropping it back into her pocket. “No need to waste time, eh? Places to be, people to meet… I’ll just be on my�"”

“No, wait!” he shouted, hands up as if it would be enough to stop her from leaving.

She grinned knowingly, eyes reflecting glints from the headlights.

“Can you really make things happen? Anything?” he asked.

She held out her arms and spun around slowly, thoroughly embracing the theatrics of it all. “That’s kind of the point.”

“And the cost?” he asked.

“I’m sure you’re familiar enough with the ‘myths’ to know the answer to that.”

He nodded and looked down at his feet. “My mom is sick...”

“And you want her to be well,” she stated.

He nodded again, then looked up at her without raising his face. “What will happen? To her? To me?”

She took a long sigh, and walked another circle around him. “That all depends on how good you are at bargaining.”

“Bargaining?”

“Sure,” she said, stopping in front of him again. “I say something along the lines of, ‘I’ll cure her cancer in exchange for your soul.’ Because you’ve certainly heard how tricky these deals can be, you counter with something more specific, like, ‘she lives a long and healthy life, and you get my soul when I die of natural causes.’ Because I am an understanding, reasonable person, but also rather impatient, I counter your counteroffer with, say, ‘she does live a long and healthy life, but I get your soul in five years.’ But you’re young, and have things you want to do, so you come back with ‘twenty years.’ And we settle on fifteen, because I get bored and threaten to revoke the offer entirely.”

His brow pushed a deep crease across his forehead. “Why are you telling me this? I wouldn’t have known what to say. You could have taken advantage of me…”

“Like I said,” she grinned, “I’m a reasonable person.”

He looked off into the darkness around them, contemplating the terms. The mischief inside the woman was obvious, and she made no attempt to hide it. But what else was to be expected from someone who could offer your deepest desires in exchange for your soul?

“Tick tock, Michael. I don’t have all night.”

“How do you know my�"”

“I know a lot of things. So, do we have a deal?” she asked, reaching her hand out into the shifting tendrils of fog that crept up from the ground.

“My mom lives a long, healthy life, and you get my soul in fifteen years?”

She nodded a slow, sly nod.

“What will happen to me? To my soul?”

“Oh, honey… The surprise is half the fun,” she said, hand still outstretched toward him.

He inhaled sharply, the kind of breath one takes before skydiving for the first time, then took her hand in his own and shook hard.

“I’ll see you in fifteen years. My regards to your mother,” she said.

As soon as she was gone, Michael’s vision faded to blackness and he fell to the ground. When he came to, the leaves were rustling again, the crickets were chirping, and his friends were smacking him lightly on the face in a panic.

“Did you see her?” he asked groggily, trying to push himself up so he could get a better look around, but his dizziness kept him planted in the gravel.

“See who?” one of his friends asked. “You were standing there and then you just… dropped, man. Are you okay?”

Michael considered that maybe it had all been a dream. Maybe he had passed out, for whatever reason, and nobody else had been in the crossroads with him at all. It was certainly the most logical conclusion. His friends heaved him into the car and drove him home, where his logical conclusion promptly ate itself.

His mother had been bed-ridden for weeks. She’d been going through treatments for over a year, and it wasn’t working. She had only gotten more and more ill. She’d barely eaten in days, and hospice had informed him that they should start making ‘plans.’ You know, the kind of plans nobody is ever really ready to make. And yet, on this night, he walked in the door to find his mother sitting at the kitchen counter, working on a stack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

“…Mom?” he whispered. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” she said through a mouth full of crumbs. “I got this wave of energy, and I realized how hungry I am.”

Michael walked toward her slowly, almost not wanting to believe what he was seeing in case it wasn’t real. He wrapped her in a gentle hug. She was still fragile, and would take a while to build her strength back up, but he hadn’t seen her look so well in what felt like an eternity. With his arms around her, he caught sight of his hand, the one with which he had shaken on the deal. There was a mark between his thumb and pointer finger. It looked like a birth mark, but he’d never seen it before. At first glance, it looked like a small X. But he soon realized it was in the shape of the crossroads. And even if it was true that he would be giving up his soul, and it was looking to be quite true indeed, he considered it well worth getting fifteen years with his mother that he otherwise wouldn’t have had.

Reviews

[MoonlitWillow]

I like this. It's five years old, but I just found it and I'm interested in the story. I doubt it'll be continued, but I just had to say it was a good start to what had the potential to be a really cool story. Your writings style is refreshing. I can tell you've been at this for a long time.