The Cinder Path

In the autumn of my junior year, I found myself in the dusty embrace of the Mojave Desert, working a construction gig with my father to make some quick cash. My friend, Leo, a geology major with a penchant for the macabre, had tagged along for the ride. One afternoon, a sudden downpour turned the desert into a slick, muddy mess, and work was called off. Leo, ever the opportunist, suggested we explore the old mining ghost town that lay a few miles off the main highway. I was skeptical, but his enthusiasm was infectious.

We drove down a rutted, unpaved road that snaked through the desert, past rusted signs and skeletal remains of long-dead machinery. The rain had turned the earth to a deep, rich red, and the air smelled of wet creosote. Leo pulled over near a cluster of crumbling adobe buildings, their roofs long gone, their walls stained with decades of weather. ‘This is it,’ he said, his eyes gleaming. ‘The old Delgado dig.’

We climbed out and started picking through the debris, looking for anything that might have been left behind. Leo was a collector of stories, and he’d told me about the Delgado brothers, two miners who had struck it rich and then vanished mysteriously in the 1920s. According to local legend, they’d hidden a fortune somewhere in these hills before disappearing, and treasure hunters had been poking around ever since.

I wasn’t much for treasure hunting, but I was bored, so I kicked at the dirt and peered into the empty doorways. That’s when I noticed something odd: a path, barely visible, leading away from the main cluster of buildings and up a steep, rocky ridge. It was lined with black, obsidian-like stones, freshly turned, as if someone had been there recently. I called out to Leo, but he was too engrossed in a pile of rusted cans.

I followed the path on my own, my boots squelching in the mud. It wound past a grove of twisted junipers and up to a small plateau. In the center of the plateau was a fire pit, cold and blackened, surrounded by charred logs. But what caught my eye was a small, leather-bound journal, lying in the ashes, its cover swollen from moisture. I knelt down and picked it up, my fingers trembling. The pages were brittle, but the handwriting was still legible, a neat, looping script that looked like it belonged to a woman.

The journal was written in a language I didn’t recognize, but scattered among the foreign words were English phrases, like ‘the cinder path’ and ‘she who waits.’ The last entry was dated October 31, 1923. It ended with a single, chilling sentence: ‘The cinder path leads to her, and she will take my name.’

I felt a sudden coldness, as if a cloud had passed over the sun, even though the sky was clear. I looked up and saw that the path I’d come from was now lined with millions of tiny, red-hot cinders, glowing like embers in the twilight. The air grew thick with the smell of sulfur. I turned to run, but the path back was gone, swallowed by a wall of black, swirling smoke.

From somewhere deep within that smoke, I heard a voice, soft and feminine, calling out a name I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t my name, but it felt like it should be. I clutched the journal to my chest and started to walk, forced by an invisible hand, toward the source of the voice. The cinders burned through the soles of my shoes, but I couldn’t stop.

I don’t know how long I walked. The smoke parted, and I found myself at the entrance to a cave, sealed by a massive stone. The voice was coming from inside. ‘Enter,’ it said. ‘Take your place beside me.’

I pressed my palm against the stone, and it moved easily, revealing a passage that led deep into the earth. I walked for what felt like hours, the journal growing heavier in my hands. At last, I emerged into a vast chamber, lit by a single, flickering lamp. In the center stood a woman, dressed in black, her face obscured by a veil. She reached out a hand, and in it, she held a name tag, like the ones you’d find at a conference, but it was blank.

‘Write your name,’ she said, her voice echoing off the walls. ‘And take your place.’

Leo found me hours later, crouched by the fire pit, my clothes covered in ash, the journal clutched in my hands. I couldn’t speak. I could only point to the path, which was now just a line of black stones, cold and lifeless. He tried to take the journal, but I wouldn’t let go. I’ve never been able to tell this story aloud, but I’ve written it down, hoping that someone, somewhere, will understand. If you ever find a cinder path in the desert, do not follow it. And if you hear a woman calling a name that isn’t yours, run. Run as fast as you can, because she might decide it should be.