The Glass-Faced Saint

The desert highway at two in the morning is a different country. The headlights of my Corolla carved a thin corridor through the dark, and the heat off the asphalt made the air shimmer like water. I’d driven this stretch of old Route 66 a hundred times since moving to the Mojave, but tonight the stillness felt wrong, like the land itself was holding its breath.

I was on my way to see Maria, my girlfriend, who lived in a converted mining shack near the edge of the caldera. She was a geologist, studying the volcanic field, and she had a way of finding things in the rock that nobody else noticed. I called her whenever I drove that road, just to hear her voice and keep the monotony at bay. She picked up on the second ring, her voice tired but warm. ‘You’re late,’ she said. ‘I was starting to worry.’

‘Sorry, the last sample took longer than I thought,’ I said, lying. I was a data analyst for a solar farm, and my shifts had been dragging lately. The truth was, I’d been avoiding this drive. For weeks, I’d been seeing things out here, things that didn’t make sense. At first, I blamed my glasses, the reflection of the dashboard lights, or the occasional coyote crossing the road. But last week, I saw a woman in a white gown standing in the middle of the road, her arms at her sides, her face hidden. I slammed the brakes, but the car passed right through her, or so I thought. When I looked in the rearview mirror, she was gone.

‘You know what I told you about those old mines,’ Maria said, as if reading my mind. ‘There’s a lot of history out here. People get lost. They forget to come back.’

‘That’s not comforting,’ I said, forcing a laugh. But then my headlights caught something up ahead, a pale shape at the edge of the road. I slowed down, my chest tightening. It was a statue, I realized, a weathered stone Virgin Mary, the kind people put up in their yards. But this one was strange. Its face was covered in a thin layer of glass, like someone had fused a pane of windowpane over the features, and the glass was cracked, showing hollow sockets beneath. I’d never seen it before, and I’d driven this road every night for months.

‘What is it?’ Maria said. ‘You’re quiet.’

‘There’s a statue,’ I said. ‘A Virgin, but it’s all wrong. The face is… covered.’

I heard Maria draw a sharp breath. ‘Turn around,’ she said. ‘Don’t look at it. Just go home.’ But it was too late. The statue’s head turned, the glass scraping against the stone like a nail on a chalkboard, and even though I couldn’t see its eyes, I felt them on me. The temperature in the car dropped, and the radio static rose to a scream. I stomped on the gas, and the engine whined as the car shot forward. When I glanced in the mirror, the statue was gone.

I didn’t stop until I reached Maria’s shack, my hands shaking on the wheel. She ran out to meet me, her lantern swinging, and she pulled me inside without a word. The shack was small, filled with maps and rock samples, and she had a pot of sage burning on the stove, the smell thick and earthy. ‘You saw it,’ she said, not a question. ‘The Glass-Faced Saint. The locals know not to go near it after dark. They say it collects the faces of the ones who look too long.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ I said, but my voice was thin. I could still feel the weight of that gaze, like it had left a mark on my skin.

Maria handed me a cup of tea, her hands steady. ‘There was a woman here in the 1920s, a hermit. She lived in the hills, mining for gold that didn’t exist. They say she went mad, and she used to stand on the road at night, wearing a white gown, waiting for a suitor who never came. When she died, the miners buried her under a Virgin statue, thinking she’d rest easy. But she didn’t. She’s been pulling the glass over people’s faces ever since, so they can see what she sees.’

I laughed, but it came out hollow. ‘You believe that?’

Maria’s face was grim. ‘Ive seen things, Isaac. Things that don’t fit in your spreadsheets. That woman isn’t just a ghost. She’s a hunger. And she’s got your scent now.’

I wanted to dismiss it, but the memory of that turned head was too fresh. I stayed at Maria’s that night, but I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the statue, the glass cracking, a face pressing from underneath. In the morning, I decided to drive back to my place, hoping the daylight would chase the fear away. But as I left, Maria grabbed my arm. ‘Don’t go that way,’ she said. ‘Take the long route. Please.’

I promised, but the long route meant an extra two hours, and I was tired. Besides, part of me wanted to see the statue again, to prove it was nothing. I took the short route, telling myself I was being foolish. The sun was high, and the desert looked ordinary, just rock and scrub. But when I reached the spot where the statue had been, there was nothing. No statue, no plaque, just a patch of dark soil that seemed to drink the light. I got out of the car, my boots crunching on the gravel, and I saw something gleaming at the edge of the road. It was a shard of glass, curved like an eyeless socket. I picked it up, and the moment I did, I felt a cold wash over me, like being doused with ice water. In the glass, my reflection stared back, but my face was not my own. It was older, gaunt, with hollow eyes that had not seen light in a century. And it was smiling.

I dropped the shard, stumbling back. My reflection in the car window was normal again, but I knew, deep in my gut, that something had latched onto me. I drove home in a daze, and when I got there, I scrubbed my face in the bathroom, trying to wash off the feeling of that glass. But no matter how hard I scrubbed, I couldn’t shake the sensation that my reflection was watching me, waiting for a moment of weakness.

That night, I called Maria, but she didn’t answer. I tried three times, and then the phone rang back. It was her, but her voice was wrong, distorted, as if she were speaking through water. ‘Isaac,’ she said, ‘she’s in the house.’

The line went dead. I spun around, my heart pounding. The air in my apartment was cold, and the lights flickered. In the hallway mirror, I saw a figure behind me, a woman in a white gown, her face covered in a pane of glass that was milky and opaque. She raised a hand, and the glass over her face began to crack, pieces falling away to reveal… nothing. Just a void where a face should be.

I ran. I grabbed my keys and drove to Maria’s, but the road was wrong. The familiar curves had become sharp angles, and the desert pressed in on all sides, darker than any night I’d known. I passed the spot where the statue had been, and this time it was there, tall and white, but the glass over its face was clear, and it held my reflection. In that reflection, I saw myself as the old woman had been, wasted and mad, and I knew her face was becoming mine.

I slammed the brakes, and the car skidded to a stop. I got out, screaming for Maria, but the only sound was the wind through the creosote. The statue’s head turned, and even though it had no eyes, I felt it staring through the glass. I fell to my knees, clawing at my face, feeling for the edges of a pane that might be forming under my skin. I tried to scream, but the sound came out muffled, as if a layer of glass had already sealed my mouth.

They found my car abandoned the next morning, the engine running, the driver’s door open. The search party was made up of locals from a nearby town, and they knew better than to go near the statue. When they finally found me, I was standing right in front of it, perfectly still, my hands at my sides. The glass over the statue’s face had been smoothed and polished, and where there had been hollow sockets, there were now eyes, a woman’s eyes, but they were pale and haunted. The locals said I was muttering something, but no one could understand it. They took me to the hospital in Barstow, and I’ve been here ever since, in a quiet room with no mirrors, no windows.

The doctors say I have a rare form of psychosis, that I’m suffering from a delusion brought on by isolation and stress. But they don’t know. They don’t see what I see at night, when the lights go out and the reflective surfaces in the room catch the faintest glow. My reflection in the glass of the observation window is not my own. It’s an old woman, and she’s always smiling, always waiting. She wants me to join her, to see the world through her glass forever.

I’ve stopped trying to explain it. I just sit here, and I wait. Because I know that one night, the glass on the window will crack, and she’ll have a new face. And it will be mine.