Sara Cleto
“When therefore the time was over, and the day came when the Evil-one was to fetch her, she washed herself clean, and made a circle round herself with chalk. The devil appeared quite early, but he could not come near to her.”—Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Before I leave my room each morning, I slide my silver gloves into place. I used to worry that people would notice them and ask questions. The only other gloves I’d seen before arriving in the city were the tough leather gloves that I sometimes wore on the farm when I needed to protect my skin from splinters and briars. These gloves, my silver gloves, are light as cobwebs before dewdrops weight their strands.
But here in the city, all the women wear gloves, and no one gives mine a second glance. Their fingers are wrapped in velvet and lace or netting and beads. Sometimes, they pull them off and let them rest on the table next to their drinks. When I bring round the pitcher of water, I see opals and emeralds gleaming on their fingers as they tap the table in time with the music. I never take mine off, not when I’m carrying a tray of drinks or tilting the microphone down to my lips.
In my gloves, I could be anyone. I could be Elodie of the empty glasses, Elodie of the syncopated notes, Elodie from upstate or overseas or a dream. Without them, the narrative possibilities narrow to one, and I refuse to live in only one song and not of my making.
Besides, my hands have been cold for years.
I’ve been working at the Pear Tree for almost two months now. I was lucky to get the job at all—two boys had quit, one after the other, the day I wandered in, brushing snow off my coat and grimacing when the flakes melted into my gloves. My request for a whiskey was met by a harried look from the woman behind the bar. “You can have two whiskies on the house if you’ll clear those tables for me,” she said, sliding me a glass with one hand and gesturing towards a cluster of tables crowned with dirty glasses. I’d stayed all night, tossing back drinks and a bowl of thick vegetable stew between table-runs. The bartender must have liked the quickness of my feet—I didn’t sit down once—and she offered the room upstairs and more of the same if I’d come back the next day.
I’ve been here ever since.
The bartender—her name was Rona, I’d learned that the first night—decided she liked having an employee who didn’t mind taking orders from a woman, and gave me room, board, and seven dollars a week for helping her run the Pear Tree. She tried to make me sit down occasionally during my shifts, but I tugged at the wrists of my gloves and kept moving.
I don’t stand still, not for long. Rona thinks it’s because I’m young, full of spunk and life, dancing from sunup to sundown. It’s much simpler to let her think that I move for the sake of the music that always fills the club, for the sensation of my short curls brushing my neck. I can’t imagine trying to tell her the truth, so I smile and shiver and keep moving.
***
The truth is that I’ve been dancing, moving, running since I was fourteen. Before that, I was a dreamier creature altogether, a girl who could sink into stillness like a bucket into a well. I loved reading. I loved the slow, methodical way soup came together in a pot if I stood beside it and stirred. I loved watching the leaves fall from the apple tree outside my window. My father called me lazy, though I tended all the animals on his farm and made three meals for us each day. The way I could stand still and look steadily at anything made him uncomfortable.
He says he didn’t mean to do it, and I do my best to believe him, but at night when I lay in bed, careful to keep my arms and legs tucked carefully into my body, I am quite sure he did.
Everyone knows not to trust strangers in the wood. But when a man with a black hat and cold, cruel smile told him he’d pay half a million dollars for whatever stood in his backyard, he agreed.
“Well of course I thought it was nothing but the apple tree,” he told me later. “How was I to know you were out there, staring at nothing? You should have been busy making dinner by then.”
I looked at him in the steady way he hated for a long moment. Then I moved.
***
Always, the Pear Tree hummed with conversation, music punctuated with the scrape of chairs against the floor and the clink of glasses against each other and the round cocktail tables scattered across the large room. Small beaded lamps provided the only light, concealing nearly as much as they revealed. Sequins flashed on gowns and headbands, and teeth gleamed behind red lipstick as patrons moved between pools of light.
Tonight, the club positively brimmed with people, silk and the scents of leather and gin. The room was a perfect, unchoreographed dance, and I, at its center, was safe. I felt my muscles relax, my spine unstiffen as I went to stand behind my microphone.
Every day, when I arrived at work, the first thing I did was to lift the small burgundy rug and check the ring of chalk I had drawn there, on the ground beneath the microphone. Once I was sure the circle was perfect and whole, I could step inside and be still.
The band, brassy and sweet as always, brought their song to a close. The pianist shot me a toothy grin before launching fingers across the keys in the first bars of my opening song, a sinuous rendition of “My Blue Heaven.” I felt my way back into stillness as I sang, letting my feet plant themselves against the floor. At first, I swayed with the music as words poured from my throat, but soon I let myself rest until all that moved was my mouth around the words and my eyes around the room.
Rona’s daughter was here again tonight. Though we hadn’t been introduced, the tight curl of her hair and the dimples in her cheeks were unmistakably her mother’s. Her gloves were short and dazzlingly white against her brown skin, and her back and her gaze were straight as an arrow. She seemed at home with herself in a way that I could almost remember feeling, and I could almost imagine feeling that way again when I looked at her. Almost.
She found me behind the bar after my set.
“A gin rickey, please,” she said. Her voice was soft and smooth, as if she’d been drinking bee’s knees full of honey rather than water, which is all she’d had since she came in the door an hour ago.
I nodded at her and pulled a highball glass off the shelf and added a few lumps of ice.
“Your voice is extraordinary,” she said. “Where did you learn to sing like that?”
Squeezing a lime over the glass, I looked up at her. She wasn’t leaning against or over the bar but standing up straight on the other side, her head cocked a little to the side as if waiting for my answer.
“Nowhere, really.” When she didn’t press for more but waited quietly for her drink, I added, “My mother sang when I was little. I guess I learned to love it from her.” Gin, then soda joined the lime in the glass.
The girl nodded. “It reminds me of a voice in a story I read once.”
I slid her the glass, smooth and quick, so the soda fizzed against the gin but didn’t splash over the top. “What’s your name?”
She smiled. “June.”
“I’m Elodie. What story?”
She laughed. “It was a in book of fairy tales. The story was about a mermaid who wanted to be on land. She wanted it so much that she gave up her voice, the source of her power and magic. She did it for a prince”—here she made a face, and I laughed out loud—“which all seemed like rather a pity, and she died in the end.”
“I remind you of a ninny-mermaid?” I asked.
“No, no, just your voice. It sounds like something magic.”
“That sounds dangerous,” I said mildly. “You’re Rona’s daughter?”
“Yes. I’m between jobs, so I’m home for a visit,” June said. “I play the trumpet. You ever sing in a band?”
“Me? No, I just sing here sometimes, on nights they need me to fill in.”
“You should think about it. I know it pays better—I’ve worked here, too!” She dropped a few coins on the counter and slipped into the kitchen.
I realized I’d been standing still since I’d finished pouring June’s drink. Scolding myself, I whirled back into motion, wiping down the bar, carrying around the water pitcher, clearing glasses, clearing my mind of anything past tomorrow.
***
The devil came for me the same day my father made his bargain.
Bags stuffed with crisp bills, bags brimming with bright coins spilled their bounty in our kitchen. My father sank his fingers into them and smiled.
I did the only thing I knew to do—I drew a circle round me with chalk, like a heroine from the fairy tales my mother used to tell me.
When the devil appeared, the circle was almost closed. He saw me, saw my hand guiding the chalk across the floor, and he extended his fingers and hissed a word that seared my ears and my flesh. A black mark bloomed across the pale skin of my hand, and I could feel his grip on me. I screamed in rage and pain, but I didn’t stop moving my hand, not for an instant, and before he could fasten his hold on me, the circle was closed.
“You are mine,” he told me. His skin was the bluish white of deep winter ice, and his smile was a string of icicles.
“I am my own.”
“You are your father’s. You are his flesh and blood, and he has given you to me. You are mine.”
“I am my own, and you have no claim on me.”
“Ah, but you are wrong, my beauty. You have but to look at yourself to know that I will never release you.”
I refused to look down at my hand, but I could feel his mark settling into my skin, swirling around my palm and up my fingers, arcane and bruise-deep.
“No. I will stay in this circle forever if I have to, or I’ll run for the rest of my life, but you will not take me.”
He laughed, each icicle-tooth gleaming in the wet maw of his mouth. “A challenge! How delightful!” He grinned, teeth grinding together, snapping and spawning new spires as I watched. My stomach heaved but I swallowed, and met his gaze. “Well, my rabbit, let’s see you run. I’ll make a new bargain. Stay within a circle or run, run, run, and you’ll be safe. But the moment you stop, the second you rest, I will take you.”
The devil vanished from my kitchen. The stove, the teacups, and all the coins were covered in a thick layer of frost.
***
That night, the devil sat in the chair at the foot of my bed. I felt him come in with a blast of cold like a punch to the chest.
“You stood still, little Elodie,” he murmured, his fingers tracing frosted obscenities across my bedroom mirror. “Not for long, just a moment, but it was just enough to let me find you. Why did you do it, my rabbit? Did you see a prince and fall in love?”
My bed was circled in rings and rings of chalk, so he could not reach me, not here, not yet. I turned my back to him and curled around my pillow. “You have some very outdated ideas about how modern ladies run their lives,” I said in a reasonable approximation of my normal voice.
“Then what was it, Elodie? Tell me, and I’ll go away until tomorrow night.”
I was silent for a moment. His footsteps cracked against the floorboards like an ax into wood as he circled my narrow bed.
“I wanted to talk to someone. I wanted a friend.”
“A friend?” said the devil, his voice incredulous. “You’d risk everything because you wanted a friend? Oh, Elodie, you delightful, foolish girl.”
He vanished. When I sat up, I saw that the floor gleamed with a thick sheet of ice.
***
I packed chalk, bread, and my mother’s best silver gloves. My father tried to offer me a handful of his shiny new bills, but I spat on them. And then on him.
“How dare you disrespect me! I am your father!” he raged.
“How dare you disrespect me! I am your daughter! May this money bring you nothing but misery and the devil’s cold embrace.”
I slammed the door behind me, threw my pack over my shoulder, and ran down the road that led to the big city.
When I bit into my bread that night from within the safety of a fresh chalk circle drawn in the dirt, I remembered that my father had never made a meal for himself, that he didn’t know how to use the heavy kitchen stove. I chewed, swallowed, and smiled a very small smile.
***
June found me crying into the soup pot the next morning.
“Elodie! What’s wrong?” She unhitched her trumpet case from her shoulder and ran across the kitchen.
“It’s nothing,” I croaked between sobs.
“Well, that’s nonsense.” She tentatively lifted her arms and when I stumbled forward, she enfolded me in a hug. I let myself cry into her blouse for a few heartbeats, then disentangled myself, darting around the room to catch up new ingredients and toss them in the soup. “Elodie, sit down. Let me get you a glass of water, and you can tell me what’s wrong?”
“I can’t,” I said, manically sprinkling pepper over the pot and rushing back to the spice rack.
“Of course you can!”
“No, really. I can’t.” I looked up to see her looking at me, bemused. “I could tell you, I suppose, but I can’t stop moving.”
“Well, let’s start there.” June set her trumpet case on the long kitchen table and pulled out a chair. “Tell me.”
Her eyes were so kind. “Well. The devil’s after me.”
June laughed a little. “He’s after us all, isn’t he?”
I don’t know what came over me—the desire to be believed? Or maybe just the desire to sit down in a damned chair without fear?—but I ripped off my silver glove. His brand pulsed darkly against my skin and seemed to wind itself tighter around my fingers. The pads of my fingers had gone the sickly blue-white of milk.
“Circles of chalk and constant motion keep him from taking me. But I was careless. I stood still too long yesterday, and he came for me last night, and he says he’s coming again tonight, and I don’t know how I can stand this much longer.”
Slowly, June stood up, and even more slowly, she took my hand carefully in both of hers to inspect the mark.
She looked up at me and said, “I believe you.”
My breath went out in a rush.
“And if you believe in me, then I think we can fix him good.”
***
I slept behind rubbish bins, under bridges and trees. I ate what scraps I could find or beg. Once, I climbed over high garden walls and ate apples and pears until the groundskeeper chased me away. I took work, when I could find it, washing, building, cleaning—anything that kept me on my feet and in motion. When I ran low on chalk, I’d buy more, or steal it. I never stayed anywhere long. Rest or comfort would draw the devil to me all the faster. And in this way, days, months, and then two years passed. By the time I wandered into The Pear Tree, I was too exhausted to run further, but my anger burned brighter than my father’s coins.
***
“This is a terrible idea,” I muttered as the sun melted into the horizon, leaving only a dim golden glow in its wake. We needed space and privacy to enact June’s plan, and with only a few hours before night fell, we’d gone to the park in the center of the city.
June glowered at me over her trumpet but continued tuning it.
“You should leave. There’s no reason for you to be dragged into this with me.”
Lifting her lips from the mouthpiece, she said, “Just remember what I told you, and we’ll be fine.”
“Fine?” I demanded. “The devil is coming, but it’s fine?”
“He’s probably a minor demon who gets his jollies terrorizing humans. Personally, I’m not convinced there’s a singular “Devil,” just a bunch of bad numbers with too much magic and too little sense to stay wherever it is they come from.” The sunset dimmed as true night fell. “Now, hush. It’s time.”
June lifted the trumpet to her lips, and a strand of notes, bright and sparkling as jewels, tumbled out. I stepped back into the cover of the trees—not hiding, that would only make me more enticing, but far enough away to let June and her trumpet shine under the glow of the nearest streetlamp. Her music was like nothing I’d heard before, lush and bright, full of motion and movement and dancing, and, as I listened, I knew the devil would like it.
I knew when he arrived, not by his voice, but by the sudden cold that ate my bones and made my brand swell like new ice.
“Elodie,” he began, but he stopped, his head swiveling towards the music. “What’s this?” he murmured, taking a step closer to June.
June didn’t falter, though frost formed on the ends of her curls, climbing higher up the strands as he crept towards her. Her music surged, honey and brass and summer sunlight distilled in her tune.
“How wonderful,” he murmured. “I think I’ll take you, too.”
As the music played on, I darted forward, my feet silent and sure from years of unceasing speed and motion. I reached deep into my pockets. Gathering fistfuls of salt, I poured a stream of white grains in an arc behind him. A perfect curve, a gibbous crescent, curled round his feet.
But it was only that, a curve, and I needed a circle, or I would be running until I died or he took me somewhere I had no intention of going. So I stepped back, took a quick, choked breath, and opened my mouth. I sang at him, a scrap of an old song I remember from my mother.
Well met, well met, said he
I have just returned from the salt, salt sea
And it’s all for the sake of thee
The devil laughed, as well he might, and took a step toward me, his hand outstretched. His fingers were tipped in claws of ice. But when his boot touched the salt, it began to smoke. He turned, seeking a clear path, but June had already closed the circle with salt from her own pocket.
He was encased in his own perfect circle.
June blew a single, steady note on her trumpet as she reached for more salt, and I kept singing. He screamed until he sizzled and ebbed at our feet. Together, we threw salt, and more salt, and until the devil was naught but a steaming pool of water and a few pieces of gold. I took off my gloves. The brand was still there, would always be a mark of what my father and the devil had done to me, but it was my hand, and there was no one left to claim me but myself.
June tucked her trumpet back into its case and offered me her arm. I took it gratefully, and we followed the road out of the park and toward The Pear Tree.
For a time, we walked in silence.
“We should start a new band, our own band,” June said thoughtfully. “If we can snare a devil with our music, surely we can charm a few drunk lads downtown.”
I stopped in the middle of the road, because I could, and June stopped with me. “We could be the City Salters.”
“No,” said June, grinning. “The Ninny Mermaids.”
***
The Pear Tree was full that night, as always, but after I sang, accompanied by June on her trumpet, and cleared the tables, I found a chair where I could drink a whiskey and do nothing at all.
***
Dr. Sara Cleto is a folklorist, author, and teacher. She recently completed her PhD in English and Folklore, and she is a co-founder of The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic where she teaches courses on fairy tales, creative writing, mythic adaptation, and more. Her poetry and fiction can be found in Uncanny Magazine, Faerie Magazine, Liminality, Mythic Delirium, Goblin Fruit, and others. Her story in this collection, “Circles and Salt,” is a response to the gruesome but fascinating Grimms’ fairy tale “The Girl Without Hands.” She lives in liminal space with her husband and their cats. She can be found at saracleto.com and carterhaughschool.com.