Mr. Jones

By Michele Joy Marsh



February 1860 

Archibald Cyrus Jones, Cyrus, to those who knew him well, was close to death, stabbed in between the ribs by an unknown man, and left to die shortly outside The Griswold Inn, where he had just heard Cassius Clay speak about freedom. How ironic to think he was about to lose his completely.  

As his life blood left him, swirling gloriously and greedily into the ground, Cyrus prayed for his life. He had left his wife and daughter home in Wallingford, and had made the two- day trip to Hartford to meet and listen to the courageous man. After drinking more than he realized, he had stumbled out toward his carriage, and met the man who would decide his fate. A dirty, rancid-smelling fellow with the eyes of a rat and a swindler came out of nowhere from the depths of shadows surrounding the Inn and had tried to kill him. By the time Cyrus realized what had happened, he was writhing on the ground in pain, and pleading for help. No help appeared. Slightly before he lost consciousness, he prayed for his family’s safety, and begged for his soul to be taken if he could only save the security of his precious Lucy and his child, Angelyn. Something listened and answered, but it was not God.  

Cyrus was swimming in and out of reality, and he knew his last breaths were near. He became aware of a whispering, as if a man he could not see was talking softly in his ear. “I heard your plea and have come to offer you an arrangement,” the voice quietly spoke. “All you must do is listen and nod with acceptance or allow death to take you now.” Cyrus did not want to die. Not tonight, but possibly one day when he was old and lying next to his beloved wife, definitely not here and definitely not now. Knowing he was on the verge of extinction, he felt no regard for accepting the voice’s offer, after all, death seemed imminent, and any reprieve from it would be welcome. He listened for another moment to the ravings of the imaginary voice inside him (for whom else could it be?) and with the last scrap of energy he had, nodded his head in agreement.  

It felt like someone had turned on the lights and sound, and out of nowhere Cyrus was aware of the excruciating noise of the Inn’s surroundings that had been muted after his attack.  

Cyrus slowly realized he had escaped death. He vaguely remembered a fever dream where he had been talking to someone, and they had offered him a deal to save his life. All he had had to offer was his eternal soul. Cyrus had accepted in his state of mortal panic, not feeling on some essential level that the offering held any meaning or worth. He did a quick assessment of his side, and saw no wound to speak of. He looked and felt fine, if a little rattled. He quickly brushed himself off, found his carriage, and rode home to his Lucy and Angelyn. As he arrived safely home, and went to greet his family, he realized they could no longer see him. He was not present as far as they were concerned, they simply could not tell that he was there. In fact, they appeared to still be awaiting his return. He watched them for several days, hiding at night in the cemetery next to their house. He mourned for them, as they slowly grew older over the years, and soon he came to see his friends and neighbors buried there after the terror of the Civil War had passed. Through all of this dervish upheap, Cyrus stayed the same. He looked the same as the years passed, and the people around him surrounded him in the carpet of ground where he stayed. After a time, Lucy and Angelyn had begun to reside there as well, and Cyrus watched over their final rest as he did all the others in the graveyard. His only purpose now was to serve the demon which had corralled him, offering him solace when he was at death’s door. Now he was nothing but a delegate of despair, a liaison for his master, orchestrating deals between the desperate and the deadly.  

Christmas Eve 2024 

One night as he awaited his newest “client”, Cyrus, now having been taken from his humanity two-hundred and sixty –four years before, found himself reminiscing about his time as a normal man, even though his memories were now cloudy and surreal, and his only true ones were now actualized when he sat on this bench next to his beloved Lucy and Angelyn, buried there five short years after his death, having both fallen victim to pneumonia. They had waited patiently for his return, and he had returned to them, but he was only a voyeur in their world now. He spent the years watching and yearning, knowing he would never share that feeling of a family again.  

He saw her coming quickly through the snow, seemingly unaware that she was only wearing the clothes she must have slept in which were drastically inappropriate for the weather, though the young woman appeared to not notice, as if she thought none of the scenery was real to begin with. He felt a closeness to her that he hadn’t felt since the women in his life had perished. It was almost as if he knew her. Could she be a relative of his bloodline? It was a thought that had never occurred to him.  He tried to remember that feeling of humanity, and found that he could not. Still, he wanted to show empathy and consideration for the predicament she would soon find herself in. He was about to ask her for something important in return for the compensation of her life. It seemed like a fair trade, or at least, the best he could offer.