An Apple for the Creature

I look up and realize that Ms. Fer has been watching the same scene unfold. “And what happened after that?”

“You know,” I said, “it all happened like she said. She came to my house with these fabulous clothes and I lost weight and I really did become popular. Next year I made the cheerleading squad and then student council, and I was homecoming princess. I never looked back. I wished many times that she could have seen me and I could have thanked her.”

“So you went from strength to strength,” Ms. Fer said quietly. “Straight A’s in college, Harvard Law School and then you got a reputation as a dynamite lawyer who would stop at nothing to win a case, not even if it meant ruining lives, wrecking companies and homes.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way,” I said, frowning. “I like to win, that’s for sure. I was being paid to win cases.”

“What about Bradley versus that steel company? What about the Emerson case?”

My frown deepened. “They were unfortunate, but those people were in a downward spiral anyway.” Then I looked up. “How do you know about them? Have you been following my career?”

“Oh, I know everything about you, my dear,” she said. “Remember that piece of paper you signed? I happen to have it here.” She handed it to me. “I, Amy Weinstein, hereby give my soul and my firstborn child to my friend Sally Ann in return for learning how to become gorgeous and successful and popular.” There was my signature, written in dark brown dried blood, and under it, Accepted. S.A. TAN.

I looked up in horror. “It says Satan.” I could hardly get the words out. “Are you trying to tell me that she—that she was the devil in disguise?”

“What do you think?” Ms. Fer asked evenly. There was the hint of a smile on her face.

Anger welled up inside me.

“She tricked me. That was terrible. She got me to sign my soul away through trickery.”

Ms. Fer shook her head. “You said you would have done anything and at that moment you would have given anything to her, even your soul.”

“But I was a stupid kid. That’s totally unfair.”

“Whoever said that Satan had to play by the rules?” she said. “And Satan doesn’t have to have horns and a red face. He has to appear in a form that humans find seductive, otherwise he’d have few converts. You needed a best friend—a spunky, pretty best friend.”

I stared at her, openmouthed, as something else occurred to me. “My firstborn child,” I whispered. “Joshua. He was born perfect. Nothing wrong with him. And then a few hours later he suddenly stopped breathing for no reason. The doctors said something about underdeveloped lungs, but you should have heard him cry when he was born. He had a loud, perfect cry.”

“Yes, he did, didn’t he,” she said. “I did hear his cry. A lovely little fellow. I actually had a glimmer of remorse about taking him. But a contract is a contract, as you yourself said many times in court.”

For the first time I saw her name plaque on her desk. Ms. Lucy Fer.

“Am I in hell?” The words came out as a whisper.

“What do you think?”

“Either I’m still in a coma after that accident and this is a horribly real hallucination or . . .”

“You’re not in a coma any longer,” she said. “You never woke up. You slipped away and I was waiting for you.”

“But that’s not fair,” I said. “I can’t be in hell. Hell is for bad people—criminals, murderers.”

“You’re a murderer.”

“I am not.”

“The auto accident that sent you to us. You plowed into a van carrying a family. A mother and her three children. One of them was a baby of three months old. The van caught fire. They were all trapped inside and died a most horrible death.”

“But it was an accident. You said so yourself. I didn’t want to kill anybody.”

“But you ran the red light because you were in a hurry. You didn’t want to be late, did you? So you took the risk.”

I winced as she said the words. The full memory had come back to me now. I could see myself, gripping that steering wheel, my face consumed with anger. The bastard. The underhanded, sneaky bastard. How could he pull a trick like that?

“I couldn’t be late. I was told at the last minute that my opponent had shown up unexpectedly at the county fair and was going to make a speech. Sneaky tactics. He knew I was scheduled to speak there that afternoon. So I had to be there when he spoke to defend myself.”

“So you thought you could flout the law and run a red light.”

“Look, I’m sorry it happened but that van must have jumped the light, too.”

Ms. Fer shook her head. “On the contrary. The van could not have jumped anything. It was so old it could only creep along. It lacked the acceleration to get out of your way when it saw you coming. The family was poor, you see. The father had lost his job when your law firm put his company out of business. I believe you represented the bank in court on that one, didn’t you? And won your case yet again?”

“I was paid to win cases,” I said. “I was good at what I did. And I worked for whomever retained us.”

“Big business,” Ms. Fer said. “Chemical companies. Tobacco. Multinationals.”

“They paid well.”