The smell of saffron calls me from my ancient slumber–another soul has come wanting.

I know I
shouldn’t answer the call. I vowed to stop being a monster, but I had never smelled a wanting
like this before.
I simply can’t resist.
I awaken in inky, suffocating darkness. It reminds me of the lonely shadows from before
the world began. I am frightened for a moment, until I remember that it's just as much a part of
me as I am of it.
I twist my darkness into a door and step through it into the tangible world of my home.
It’s never the same twice. Tonight, it’s an empty moonlit field where tall hissing grass hides the
point where two long forgotten iron railroad tracks meet. The darkness birthed me here, in these
strange places betwixt and between–at the axes of endless stretches of roads.
I search for the source of the saffron. It burns my throat as I inhale it. It’s a chronic kind
of agony, but I’ve been starving for so very long now. My stomach twists and I double over.
That’s when I see her.
She kneels in the dirt, hunched, bowing her head to the ground like she's praying. She’s
haloed by a thin white gown–the kind women used to wear when this world was younger. Where
it isn’t white, it's violently red. How strange, I think, they never look like this.
I’m distracted by the wanting seeping from her skin. It always smells like saffron: dark,
leathery, and sickly sweet–like honey and blood. But the girl’s is different somehow–it’s more
violent, more desperate, more intoxicating.
How very unusual, I think again, and it isn’t until I hear the strangled birthings of her
scream that I realize I’ve spoken the words aloud. Her red-rimmed eyes are round with fear. I’m
an unnatural silhouette of ragged, chilling darkness–she must think me a monster. Desperately,
sculpt my shadows into something I think she’ll like–a human boy with shiny hair and gentle
eyes the precise colors of black ink. Despair stabs my chest as I touch the familiar dark curls. I
didn’t mean to mirror his image, but when I think of beauty, I suppose I still picture him.
“I’m not a monster.” I plead.
She straightens, and I glimpse the source of my calling. Cradled in her arms, like a child
would their favorite doll, is a raven. She strokes its lolling, exposed skull with her bleeding fin-
gers.
“Where am I?” She croaks. I like the lilt in her voice. It’s a gentle drawl which smoothes
her words into a lullaby.
“This is my home. You humans call it a crossroads.”
She strokes the raven again. “Pa says to stand at the crossroads and look. Says to ask
where the good way is and walk in it to find rest for your soul.” I recognize the words from a hu-
man book–one that tore the world apart. “Are you here to help my raven’s soul find rest?” She
asks.
“I am here because you have come wanting.” I say.
“Wanting?” She echoes. Different from the rest, I think again, and feel hope grow in my
dark chest. They always know what they want.
 “Wanting to make a deal,” I explain, choking on the words that would break my vow.
“You can have or be whatever you desire.” She looks down, pondering, before sliding her gaze
back to mine.

“I want to be kind.” She says simply.

The hope blooms inside of me. Its iridescence makes my shadows feel warmer–lighter,
less lonely and cold. She has no desire for greatness or victory. Yes, perhaps this time will be dif-
ferent. Her kindness could atone for the madness I’ve caused.
“There will be a price.” I warn. I didn’t say more–I don’t want her to run.
“I’ll pay it, I swear.” She held out her bloodied pinky to me. As my finger gripped hers, I
felt my vow to never fulfill the crossroads again shatter like glass against pavement. But as I
broke one vow, I made another.
This time would be different. I would not be a monster–I would not love her.

I spent a year in the darkness–it was the only way to keep the monster at bay. I tried to
slumber, but I was restless and soon the shadows were too stifling to withstand.
I followed her saffron and slunk into the gloom of a forest beside the highway by which
she walked. Her feet were bare despite the chill, and she moved like a phantom in her flowing
white skirt.
She paused by a small lump of matter at the roadside–a rabbit. It looked dead, but its faint
twitching insinuated the painful endurance of life. Kneeling, she reached into her jacket pocket.
The object glinted in the dim winter light–a knife. Like a dancer, she sliced the knife across the
creature’s throat in a graceful, lethal arc.
“I can feel you, you know.” She cooed. I twisted back into the shiny-haired boy and
emerged from the forest.
“You killed it.”
“It was too far gone,” she breathed, “I ended the pain.”
The saffron pulsed from her skin like blood from an open wound as I knelt beside her.
She was even more beautiful up close. Her features were softer, her eyes warmer, as if our deal
had turned her into the embodiment of all things good and kind.
“How did you know I was here?” I stuttered.
“I felt your pain,” she grabbed my hand and although my fingers were shadows beneath
the skin, her’s felt colder. “It feels like drowning, help me understand it.” She pleaded.
“I’ve loved many people,” I admitted, “And they die because of it.”
“Tell me about them.” She begged.
So I did.

I began with my first. It had been a warm night in the ancient, young world. He’d come to the
crossroads wanting, like they all did, with the skull of a raven and a pricked finger tucked into
the pocket of his billowing robes. I remember thinking he was the most beautiful creature I’d
ever seen: dark curls, dark eyes, and soft skin like olives.
 Beside the highway, my current form was his eerie reflection.
When he smiled at me, I knew I would love him forever. He asked for knowledge and
wisdom–and I gave it to him. But the amount was never enough and the madness began. He be-
came psychotic, working for days without sleeping or eating, standing on the edge of cliffs to see
if the wind would whisper secrets in his ear. At his end, the madness turned divine, and the smell
of saffron ceased. He had no more questions, no more wanting, and his once beautiful face
twisted with laughter caused by nothing at all. I begged him not to go, but he ate the deadly hem-
lock all the same.
Maybe the act of loving him was worth the pain which swallowed the sun, but my grief
was so potent I was sure I would die. I vowed to never fulfill the crossroads again. But when
they came wanting I was sure each time would be different–it never was. The monster always
won in the end.
My love was their price–and their madness was mine.

“Will I go mad too?” The girl asked quietly.

“No.” I vowed fiercely. “I will not love you. I won't be a monster.” A look of despair
crossed her face and dissolving back into darkness was all I could do to stop myself from reach-
ing forward to capture the tear running down her cheek.

It was another ten years before my resolve once again lapsed.

I found her in a 24-hour cafe, sipping at a steaming cup of tea, intently watching an old
man at the counter push around a plate of hash browns. Slipping from the gloom, I pulled out the
worn leather-back chair across from her. It screeched against the checkered linoleum.
“It’s very late.” I observed.
Her familiar wide eyes met mine, and despite the dark half-moons beneath them, her face
remained a thing of serene beauty.
“I don’t sleep well these days,” she said in her familiar drawl, “Though I sense I sleep
better than you–and him.” She nodded in the old man's direction. “His wife died. He’s alone
now.”
“Can you help him?”
Saffron invaded my senses as her exhaustion disappeared, replaced by serene, glowing
delight. “Yes,” she beamed. “I can.”

I watched from the shadows as she trailed the old man down an unlit, empty street. I was curious,
nothing about this dirty alleyway seemed like a place for kindness. It wasn’t until she reached
into her pocket and I saw the familiar glint of metal in her hand that I understood.
I watched in silent horror as she gracefully plunged the blade into his heart. Cradling his
face, just as she had the raven, she stroked his pale cheeks as he gurgled his final breath.
“Why?” I whispered in despair.
 “I had to,” she hummed, tracing patterns on her palms with the blood. “I had to end his
pain, there is so much of it.” Her eyes became crazed as she knotted her bloodied fingers into her
hair. “It never stops, it never ends–it just keeps calling to me.”
I grasped her shoulders. “You were supposed to help undo the pain I’ve caused, but this
is madness–not kindness!”
She smiled, eyes gleaming with hope. “So… you love me?”
I had stayed away, imprisoned my monster in the darkness. But she was wrought with
madness which meant only one thing.
“Yes.” I admitted painfully. “I love you.”

I wasn’t so restless anymore and I slumbered for 50 years until I felt someone call to me. There
was no smell of saffron. It was very unusual–I couldn’t resist. I twist my darkness into a door
and step through it into my home which is never the same twice.
Until it was.
She kneeled in the same moonlit field, her white hair and white dress smeared with the
same violent red stains. Her face was just as lovely as I remembered, despite the creases of age
and gaunt hollows of her cheeks. Between her bleeding fingers is the fresh skull of a raven.
“Hello.” She said, the familiar tickle of her lilt caressing my shadows. I searched for the
scent of her saffron, but nothing was there. Despair bubbled in my throat. Her madness had
turned divine–she was ready to die.
“You have not come wanting.” I whispered.
“No.” She smiled knowingly.
“Please stay,” I begged. “I love you.”
“Loneliness isn’t love.” She hummed mournfully.
“I’m not lonely,” I insisted, “I have you.”
“I understand your pain now.” She whispered, “Your loneliness brings you to the cross-
roads again and again. It’s never different–It never will be. It’s madness, and you're horridly, ex-
cruciatingly alone in it.” She leans forward to kiss my dark cheeks. “They don’t go mad because
you love them,” she says. “You love them because they go mad.”
“Do you think me a monster?” I asked fearfully. Maybe she was right, but I only cared
that she stayed with me.
I’m wrapped into her ancient embrace. “A monster isn’t a monster when you love it too,”
she whispers, “And because I love you–I will end your pain.”
My despair ebbs. She loves me too. I’m so lost in the rapture of her declaration that I
hardly even feel her blade as it burrows through my back and into my heart.
Gasping, I feel my shadows leak into the soil. I’m afraid of them at first–afraid to return
to the darkness, but as she rocks me like a child I relax into her embrace.
“Don’t worry my love,” she purrs against my curls–his curls. “I’ll be there soon.”
I let her gentle lilt lull me to sleep, easing me back into the shadows from which I was
born. This time, the darkness doesn't seem so lonely.