THE DEVIL AND ME Part 4

Chapter 4: The Visit

The rain came back with me.

It followed me from the bathroom to the bedroom to the kitchen. It dripped off my hair even though I’d toweled it twice. It ran down the windows even though the sky outside was clear.

Nomsa’s voicemail was still playing in my head.

*“I can’t remember how to write. That’s my job, Lindi.”*

Thandi texted 3 minutes later:

*“My publisher dropped me. They said my last 20 pages ‘have no voice.’ What did you do?”*

I didn’t answer.

I couldn’t.

Because I knew what I’d done.

I said no. And the debt didn’t disappear. It moved.

My phone buzzed again. Zanele.

I let it go to voicemail.

I sat on the floor of my kitchen and stared at the ash on my hands from the contract. It wouldn’t wash off. Not completely. There was a faint gray line under my nails.

The house was quiet. Too quiet.

The echo was gone.

Because it had found new mouths.

I started laughing. It sounded wrong. High and broken.

“Congratulations,” I said to the empty room. “You’re free.”

No one answered.

---

At 8:17pm there was a knock on the door.

Three knocks. Slow. Deliberate.

I didn’t move.

The knocking came again.

“Lindiwe,” a voice said. Not loud. But it went through the door like it wasn’t there.

I knew that voice.

I opened the door.

He was standing in the hall. Same suit. Same red eyes. Rain wasn’t touching him. The air around him was dry.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

I should have said no.

I stepped aside.

He walked in like he owned the place. Looked at my messy kitchen. My unwashed mugs. The notebook on the table with one line in it: *I am still here.*

“Sit,” he said, gesturing to a chair.

I sat. He sat across from me.

For a long time neither of us spoke.

Finally he said, “You heard from them.”

It wasn’t a question.

“They can’t write,” I said. My voice was flat. “Nomsa. Thandi.”

“Yes.”

“You did that.”

“No,” he said. “You did. When you burned the contract. The debt doesn’t vanish, Lindiwe. It reassigns. You refused to pay. So it took from the last people who signed.”

My stomach turned. “I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t ask.”

I put my head in my hands. “Make it stop.”

“I can.” He leaned forward. “That’s why I’m here.”

---

He placed something on the table between us.

The pen.

And one new contract.

This one was different. Thicker paper. The words were already written in that dark ink.

*I, Lindiwe Maleya, return the debt to myself. In exchange, the debt against Nomsa and Thandi is void. The gift of words is returned to me. The cost is my freedom.*

“Sign this,” he said, “and they get their voices back. You get yours back. Everything goes back to how it was.”

“Except me,” I said.

“Except you,” he agreed. “You belong to me. Not all at once. But piece by piece. Every book. Every word. I collect when the work is done.”

“So I’m a slave.”

“You’re an author,” he said, and for a second he almost smiled. “With a very demanding publisher.”

I stared at the paper. “Why are you giving me a choice now? Before it was three souls or nothing.”

“Because you’re interesting,” he said simply. “Most people take door number one and never look back. You burned it. You took the pain instead. That’s rare.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“No,” he said. “It’s supposed to make you choose.”

---

The rain started again. Inside.

Little drops hit the table. Hit my hands.

“Can I think about it?” I asked.

“You have until sunrise,” he said. “After that, the reassignment becomes permanent. Nomsa and Thandi lose the ability permanently. And the echo comes back to you. Louder.”

“Why the rush?”

“Because debts don’t like to wait,” he said. Then he stood. “I’ll be outside.”

He walked to my window and stood there, looking out at the brick wall like it was a view.

I was alone with the pen.

---

I picked it up. It was cold. Colder than before.

I thought about Nomsa. She has two kids. Her job is copywriting. If she can’t write, she can’t pay rent.

I thought about Thandi. She just got her first poetry deal. She cried on the phone when she told me.

I thought about me.

If I signed, the words would come back. The fame would stay. I’d never be “the problem” again.

But every book would be his. Every idea. Every late night.

I would be a vessel.

Is that worse than being nothing?

I put the pen down.

Picked it up.

Put it down again.

At 11pm, Zanele called.

I answered.

“Lindi, where are you? Nomsa is at my house. She’s panicking. She says she sat at her computer for 8 hours and wrote nothing. She’s crying.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“What did you do?”

I didn’t answer.

“Lindi. Talk to me.”

“I can’t,” I said, and hung up.

---

Midnight.

He was still at the window. He hadn’t moved.

“You’re stalling,” he said without turning around.

“I’m deciding.”

“No. You decided when you said no in the bathroom. This is just you trying to feel less guilty about it.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Fair?” He turned. His red eyes caught the light. “You made a deal with me, Lindiwe. Fair left the room a long time ago.”

I stood up. “Then give me another option. The book said equal sacrifice.”

He tilted his head. “Did it. What did you have in mind?”

“I don’t know. My memories? My ability to feel proud? Ten years of my life?”

He laughed. Not cruelly. Tiredly. “A soul isn’t measured in years or memories. It’s measured in what you’re willing to give up that you can never get back. And you already gave the only thing you had that was worth anything. Your yes.”

“So there is no other way.”

“Not that I’m offering.”

---

1:30am.

I went to my bedroom. He didn’t follow.

I opened my drawer. Under socks and old receipts was the first notebook. The one with 40 pages that got me nowhere.

I flipped through it. Bad dialogue. Flat characters. Me, trying so hard and getting nowhere.

But it was mine.

Every bad sentence was mine.

I closed it and cried. Quietly. So he wouldn’t hear.

At 2am I heard a sound from the living room.

Scratching.

I went out.

He was sitting at my desk. Writing in my notebook.

*Day 29. She’s almost ready.*

He looked up. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“What are you writing?”

“The story,” he said. “The one people will read in 10 years. *The Author Who Sold Her Soul And Got It Back.* It’s going to sell very well.”

“Don’t.”

He closed the notebook. “Then sign.”

---

3:44am.

My phone lit up.

Nomsa: *“I just tried to write an email to my boss. I typed for 20 minutes and it’s gibberish. Lindi please.”*

Thandi: *“They’re pulling my book. They said it reads like AI. I’m going to lose everything.”*

Zanele: *“Come home. Now.”*

I threw the phone.

“Enough!” I yelled at him. “You’re doing this on purpose.”

“I’m doing nothing,” he said. “This is what happens when a debt is unpaid. It bleeds.”

“You’re a monster.”

“I’m a collector,” he said. “You called me.”

---

4:30am.

The sky was starting to lighten. Gray at the edges.

I sat at the table. The contract in front of me.

The pen in my hand.

He sat across from me again. Waiting.

“Last chance to ask questions,” he said.

“Will it hurt?”

“Not physically.”

“Will I remember who I was?”

“Yes. That’s the worst part.”

I nodded.

I thought about the girl who wrote in notebooks no one read.

I thought about the girl on the billboard.

I thought about Nomsa’s kids.

I signed.

*I, Lindiwe Maleya, return the debt to myself...*

The moment the last letter dried, the air changed.

Lighter.

Warmer.

The pen disappeared from my hand.

He stood. “It’s done.”

“What happens now?”

“Now you write,” he said. “And when you’re done, I collect.”

“How?”

“You’ll know,” he said. Then he walked to the door.

Before he left, he paused. “For what it’s worth, Lindiwe. You did the right thing.”

Then he was gone.

The rain inside stopped.

---

Sunrise.

My phone buzzed.

Nomsa: *“It’s back. I just wrote 3 pages. I don’t know how. Thank you.”*

Thandi: *“My editor called. They want the book back. What happened??”*

Zanele: *“Are you okay???”*

I didn’t answer any of them.

I went to my desk.

Opened a new document.

Blank page.

I put my fingers on the keys.

And words came.

Not fast. Not possessed.

Slow. Careful. Mine.

*She signed her name again. This time knowing the price.*

I wrote for six hours straight.

It wasn’t good. It wasn’t magic.

But it was mine.

At 2pm, I stopped. My head hurt. My eyes burned.

And I felt it.

A tug. Like someone pulling a thread from my chest.

I looked down. There was nothing there.

But I knew.

He had taken the first piece.

---

That night I dreamed.

Not of him.

Of me.

I was 12, in my bedroom, writing stories about girls who could fly.

My mom knocked. “Dinner.”

“One more page,” I said.

I woke up crying.

Because I remembered what it felt like to write for no one.

And I knew I would never have that again.

---

The next morning my editor called.

“Lindi. We got your chapters. They’re... different. Quieter. But good. Real good.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“We can still do the 7-figure deal. If you want it.”

I looked at my hands. No cut. No ash.

Just me.

“Yeah,” I said. “I want it.”

Because I had to.

Because they needed me to.

Because I had made my choice.

After I hung up, I opened the notebook.

On the last page, in ink I didn’t use, were three words.

*Payment received.*

Underneath, smaller:

*See you at the next book.*

---

**End of Chapter 4**