The Crossing Point

by August Arrea

  It took a moment, maybe two, before Ava came to realize what “place” Gotham was referring. Of course, there was only one place in existence where a boy like Jacob could find the answers—and believe those answers—to the questions he had not yet come to realize needed answering. More importantly, it was a place where others, like Jacob, were brought, from around the world; a place where Jacob could discover he was not alone in his uniqueness.

  “Havenhid.” The name escaped Ava’s lips like a breath unto itself.

  “I had hoped she had forgotten all about that promise she had secured from me that night so long ago, but she hadn’t,” said Gotham.

  “What did you tell her?” asked Ava.

  “What you would have expected me to,” answered Gotham. “That I would make good on my vow to ensure her boy was looked after.”

  Ava absent-mindedly rubbed her knees with a nervous fidgetiness, as if she was suddenly overcome by the unexpected turn in the conversation.

  “You’ll forgive me...you’ve caught me a bit off-guard with this, even though I should have known this moment might possibly come at some point,” she said. “When Isabeth was a little girl, I used to tell her stories about it when I tucked her in to bed at night. She’d lie there under the covers, her big brown eyes fixed on me, listening to her mother spin tales of some wonderful, fantasy place—much like Neverland. Never once did they put her to sleep. It was only when she was preparing for Jacob’s arrival that she mentioned off-handedly how when he was old enough she planned to send him there, to this place I always assumed she thought was make believe.”

  A stony, sobering look suddenly settled itself on Ava.

  “I suppose allowing you to take Jacob there would be the logical thing to do,” she said. “After all, where else can a boy like him go to find himself? His inner world grows more and more confusing with each day that passes. He needs answers I’m not equipped to give him. Certainly, Cain’s Corner doesn’t have the means to offer him much clarity. Not that I can pretend to be over the moon by this news. Then again, I only want what’s best for Jacob. He’s very dear to me, and the thought of his leaving already is bringing a pang of emptiness to my heart. But if Isabeth had the foresight to believe this path is what’s best for her son, then who am I to stand in the way of her wishes?”

  She began to wring her hands with a growing nervousness while continuing to mull over the idea more in her head.

  “Whether or not Jacob chooses to go along, however, is another matter altogether,” Ava pondered aloud. “It has to be his decision, and his alone, not mine and not yours.”

  And the more she thought about it, the more anxious she became. It wasn’t like when Jacob was a young boy and surprising him with an outing to the countryside or the beach, or a weekend excursion to an amusement park. This was his mother’s last dying request. It would involve uprooting Jacob from everything and everyone he knew. What could prove to be more difficult than leaving behind one’s home, school, friends—even to honor a mother’s wishes? What’s more, there was Gotham. How, Ava wondered, would she even broach trying to explain to Jacob who this stranger was, much less convince her grandson to accept him as his chaperone, for lack of a better word, on this journey? None of these things Ava turned over repeatedly in her mind, however, compared to the enormity of the task of finally being forced to reveal to Jacob the one secret which had been kept from him for far too long—a secret that would forever change the reflection he saw whenever he glanced into a mirror.

  How would she manage to approach Jacob with any of this and somehow convince him the time had not finally arrived to commit her into the supervised care of the local twilight home for the elderly?

  ~~~

  “When were you wanting to leave with him?” Ava finally asked.

  No answer came from Gotham. In fact, he suddenly took on a look of discomfort, as though the walls of the room were slowly beginning to come together to smother him, and the feeling quickly transferred itself to Ava.

  “You have no intention of taking him, do you?” she said. Gotham answered by focusing his brilliant golden eyes on her.

  “I don’t understand,” said Ava looking confused. “You just said—”

  “You inquired why Isabeth had called for me,” Gotham curtly cut through Ava’s voice with his own like a knife slicing through a tomato, “and I have told you.”

  Ava looked visibly taken aback.

  “She died believing that you would look after her son. To help guide through this…this…”

  “I have every intention of looking after the boy as I promised,” argued Gotham.

  “The boy, the boy—” Ava snapped in frustration. “He has a name: Jacob.”

  Gotham didn’t need a reminder. “I can teach him everything he needs to know right here, without taking him from his home.”

  “You know that’s not good enough,” Ava balked loudly, abandoning her tea on the table, and with a quickness that belied her age she was on her feet and pacing about the room. “He needs to be with others who are like him, to see and know firsthand all of the things existing just out of sight that, unless he experiences it himself, he will never truly understand much less entertain belief in, even coming from your mouth.”

  “Be reasonable, Ava!” implored Gotham in an effort to suppress the growing angst rising in her. “Somehow, someway this place, for all these years, has proven a safe harbor for the b—…for Jacob. Do you really want to threaten that? Because that is the risk we will be taking if I were to take him. Here, at least, he has a chance at living a normal life, as his mother wanted.”

  “DON’T!” scolded Ava under her breath. “Don’t you dare twist what Isabeth wished for her son in order to justify your actions when you know exactly what her intentions were.”

  Ava’s hands were once again wringing one another as she made her way to the window. Standing there looking outside with the sunlight streaming inside warming her face, she was immediately taken by the faint high-pitched shrill of screaming laughter which turned her gaze further up the street to the sight of a group of small children running about as they played in a neighboring front yard.

  “A normal life? Do you have any idea what the last sixteen years have been like living here? Always on edge whenever someone walked by the house or a salesman came to the front door, ever vigilant of the shadows following along the ground, never sure if they were just harmless, dark empty shapes, or hid a strange, frightening movement we were always hopeful never to see that would immediately deliver to us the unsettling news that they’d finally found us,” said Ava, her eyes betraying a fear she had done well in concealing longer than she could remember.

  “By God’s grace, this place has been an untold blessing all these years,” she continued. “But you more than anyone else know that even Cain’s Corner can’t shield Jacob forever, for the exact same reason he was brought here in the first place. Then what?”

  “We will deal with that when the day comes.”

  “That’s your answer?”

  “It’s the only one I’ve got.”

  Ava couldn’t believe her ears, nor that she was having this argument with Gotham. Here. Now.

  “I don’t understand you,” she remarked in the most heartbreaking of whispers. “We’re not talking about his life, but his soul. How you can refuse to provide him with the things he will need to help protect and keep him safe is beyond comprehension.”

  “Do I really need to spell it out for you?” bellowed Gotham.

  The tenor of his voice made the house shudder and took Ava aback momentarily, instantly neutering her anger.

  “This has nothing to do with Jacob,” she said, finally understanding. “This is about David...isn’t it?”

  Gotham turned away from her to hide the rare but distinctly wounded look he felt creep across his face at the mention of the one good thing he and Ava had managed to create together: their son.

  “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t thin
k about him…mourn him,” said Ava. “It’s taken a long time; more time than I thought life would ever afford me. But eventually—somehow—I found a way to let go of the anger before it had a chance to consume me. Because I know that’s what he would have wanted. But even more important, because I know we did what was best for him, which was to allow him to be fully that which he was.”

  “I did not come here to discuss this,” barked Gotham.

  Ava had every intention to continue. “We both knew the risks and dangers that existed where David was concerned and we accepted them. What happened to him was unfortunate—heartbreakingly so—but it was not in vain, but only because we made the conscious decision to help prepare him against such risks. Jacob is entitled the same consideration, if not more.”

  “This conversation is over! I’ve made my decision,” announced Gotham as he briskly brushed past Ava.

  “You know I can take him myself, if I have to,” she blurted out defiantly. “I may not have the ability to see him the whole way, but thanks to you I know where to go to find the one person who can. Don’t think I won’t.”

  Of course, Gotham knew immediately to whom Ava was referring, but instead of arguing the asininity of what she was threatening, as was his first inclination, he bit his tongue and simply nodded.

  “Pity I don’t have my camera within reach for this moment,” remarked Ava as she watched Gotham make his way toward the front door. “The sight of you once again exiting my life is definitely an image worthy of a frame. I imagine it would add just the touch of cheer needed amongst my other photographs.”

  Such words, especially coming from her, stung Gotham, but he did his best to allow them to wash off his back without so much as a grimace.

  “Goodbye Ava,” he said pausing at the door. He found himself wanting to take a last look at her but was unable to bring himself to do so. “Be well.”

  He closed the door behind him, and like that he was gone. Ava held her stoic stance, and surrounded by an almost unbearable silence interrupted only by the heartbeat ticking of the clock on the mantle she stared through the thinly veiled white drapes that framed the sides of the window and watched Gotham make his way across the lawn to the sidewalk and disappear up the street. Only when he was out of sight did Ava slowly wilt into a nearby chair, bow her head to her chest and begin to sob.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Invisible Boy

  A

  t Harpus High School, Jacob Parrish’s existence was that of a Ghost. Ghost was the term used to refer to students who, for whatever reason, never managed to find a welcoming place in any of the established cliques at the school. As such, they largely drifted through their four years at the campus in much the same way a spirit lingers in a house that becomes its haunt after death; existing, yet not seeming to exist to the outside world; a transparent presence in which all eyes are largely prone to look through and thus ignore. Jacob may very much have been made of flesh and bone, but one would unlikely take notice of him unless, like an unseen spook, he made you aware he was there.

  As it happened so many times before, he rounded the corner of one of the school’s gray buildings without garnering so much as a look from the throngs of other students he passed while making his way toward The Pit. An amphitheater of sorts in the center of campus shaped by sculpted slopes of concrete and numerous stairways, The Pit served as a crossing point for students making their way from one of the four corners of campus to the other. To the Skaters, it was a concrete-paved nirvana serving as a sacred church where they could practice their religion of surfing land, as well as the handrails of the stairways descending down into The Pit while ear-piercing music blasted from an ancient, beat-up boom box nearby.

  With a backpack weighted with bulky text books slung across his shoulder and his attention buried along with his nose inside the book he grasped in his hand, Jacob made his way blindly down the steps of The Pit oblivious to the shaggy-haired concrete surfers whipping past him as they were of him, including one in mid-kickflip who was forced to abandoned his board when Jacob strolled directly into his path.

  “Yo—watch where you’re goin’ bro,” balked the tall, lanky Skater once he had managed to regain his balance and save himself from an embarrassing face- plant.

  Jacob spun around, never breaking his stride, and looked up from his book. “Sorry about that,” he offered good-naturedly before spinning forward, burying his face back in his book and continuing on his way.

  “Douche!” the Skater muttered under his breathe with irritable disdain, brushing back his seventies-inspired mop of locks hanging in his face with a hair-flip motion as down pat and perfected as his skating moves.

  ~~~

  To be fair, Jacob wasn’t averse to his invisible existence; in fact, he quite preferred it. One might even say his relegation to the land of Ghostdom was not so much a banishment by his peers at school as it was a self-imposed exile. After all, it’s hard trying to fit in where one feels he doesn’t belong. And no one felt more like a square in a world surrounded by circles than Jacob, even when on the outside he appeared as anything but.

  At first look, one might mistake him as one of the Gets. Gets were the popular kids at the top of the food chain who appeared to have everything in life handed to them on a silver platter. They were the good-looking crop of students: the jocks, the cheerleaders, the spawn of the wealthy, clean-cut, primped and pressed in the latest designer fashions and trends at the moment. Jacob certainly didn’t consider himself a jock, despite a short stint on the school wrestling team. That is, before the condition with his back forced him to an abrupt time out. And while he may have had a “cute” shine to him, it was in an awkward, teenaged way that came packaged in a tall, loose-limbed body with plenty of room to grow. Nor did his preferred uniform of T-shirt, jeans and well-traveled Converse sneakers do much to lower the upturned noses of the label-conscious Gets.

  And despite having his face buried in a book outside of a classroom, Jacob had even less in common with those on the other end of the social spectrum: the Nerd Herd. What appeared to be a dweebish thirst for knowledge was actually nothing more than a last-minute attempt to cram into his brain as much assigned reading as possible that he had put off before his English class later in the day.

  When Jacob reached the top of the steps on the other side of The Pit, he was greeted by a hand that grabbed hold of his book and snatched it out of his grasp. At first he expected to look up and see it was one of the illiterate Burnouts—the school’s grungy metal heads—who every now and then enjoyed injecting a little bit of misery into an otherwise tolerable day for certain walks of life who passed through their claimed western corner boundary of their precious Pit and decided to swipe the book for a spirited game of Keep-Away. Instead, Jacob quickly discovered he had run into something far worse than an annoying Burnout when he saw the face of his best friend Ty Wrenwood staring back at him with an expression of abject horror.

  “Why don’t you just wear a sandwich board with the words ‘Warning: Dork Crossing’ painted in red across the front and ‘Kick Me’ on the back?” questioned Ty.

  So much for the peaceful cramming session, Jacob thought to himself while sighing with exacerbation.

  “So wha’cha reading there pal that’s obviously made you not care about what little reputation you have left?” Ty hummed with amusement while eyeing the cover of Jacob’s book. “Hmm, ‘Paradise Lost’...sounds like one of those magazines at the liquor store that come sealed in a plastic bag.”

  “You would know,” Jacob cracked dryly while making a grab for his book only to catch a handful of air as Ty took a jump backward.

  “Th’ infernal serpent,” Ty began to mockingly recite from the book in a deep, Old World-accented voice one would associate with a stuffy English professor in need of dusting when he suddenly stopped.

  “ ‘Th’? What the hell is ‘Th’? This written by Sylvester the Cat? TTTHHHuffering TTTHHHuccotash!”

  Jacob grimaced with
disgust as he wiped away the spray of spittle that hit his face courtesy of Ty’s impeccable, yet very wet, impression of the Bugs Bunny cartoon character.

  “Come on, give it here—I’ve got a test next period I need to get ready for,” Jacob demanded as he pursued Ty through the stream of passing students while now and then making a grab for the book that always managed to be kept a hair out of his reach. Clearing his throat, his brow furrowing, Ty resumed his theatrical reading.

  “Th’ infernal serpent, he it was whose guile stirred up with envy and revenge deceived the mother of mankind, what time his pride had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host of rebel angels, by whose aid, aspiring to set himself in glory above his peers, he trusted to have equaled the Most High”

  “Not funny doofus,” Jacob grumbled sourly.

  Clearly amused whenever he could get his best friend riled up, Ty continued to make his way blindly through the crowd, walking backward just fast enough to stay just out of reach from the hand that made a grab for him now and then while remaining oblivious to the strange looks he continued to receive from other students over his obnoxious recitation.

  “If he opposed, and with ambitious aim against the throne and monarchy of God raised impious war in heav’n and battle proud with vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power hurled headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky with hideous ruin and combustion down to bottomless perdition, there to dwell in adamantine chains and penal fire.”

  Ty suddenly stopped and turned a bewildered look onto Jacob.

  “Okay, seriously, my first born in exchange for a hit of whatever this, uh, Mr. John Mitton was smoking,” he said, giving the cover of the book a quick glance in search of the author’s name.

  “It’s Milton, bonehead. And thanks for losing my place,” Jacob groused while quickly reclaiming ownership of his book from Ty’s clutches before disappearing into the flow of students.

  “Bonehead, is it now? Well, at least I know ‘the’ comes with an ‘e’,” Ty called after him. “Your smart guy Mr. Millllton should have called his book ‘Any Possible Comprehension in Understanding What the Hell I’m Writing Lost’.”