And, all the while, the squawk of the crow echoed out through the Treasure House.

Finally, Yehuda Leib went through a heavy white door into a rich corridor lined with thick carpeting.

Here. The sound was here.

The corridor was, in fact, part of a massive stairwell, and, peering down its long shaft, Yehuda Leib could see the crow, squawking and hopping, flapping furiously, trying to get off the floor at the very bottom of the staircase.

But no matter how hard it tried, the attempt was doomed to fail: the crow had been weighted down with treasure—heavy jeweled chains, bulky gold rings, even a little crown atop its feathered head—and under all this weight, it had no chance at all of flying away.

In a flash, Yehuda Leib spun down the stairs, flight after flight, turning and turning until he had it, a handful of dark, croaking feathers that squirmed and squalled in his grasp.

“Give him back,” cried Yehuda Leib, suddenly on the verge of tears. “Give him back!”

But to his horror, the crow was laughing. “Too late!” said the bird.

“What?” said Yehuda Leib. “What do you mean?”

But already Yehuda Leib was beginning to understand: there was no light in the bird’s throat.

With a sound like the snipping of heavy shears, the crow’s great beak snapped at Yehuda Leib’s fingers; with a crashing thud, he let the demon fall to the floor.

“What did you do?”

“I sold him.”

This was incomprehensible to Yehuda Leib. “You what?”

“I had something,” croaked the crow, “and I wanted something. That’s the way the world works.”

Yehuda Leib was furious. “He wasn’t…” It took all the strength he had left in him not to punt the little demon across the hall. “He wasn’t yours to sell!”

“Ha!” said the crow. “At least I gave him up for something. What would you have given me?”

Yehuda Leib felt hot embarrassment spread across his cheeks. “Just tell me where he is.”

Another grunting laugh. “You’ll have to talk to Lord Mammon.”

Yehuda Leib grimaced. “Where?”

The crow gestured across the hall with its beak: a pair of grand double doors, one ajar.

Yehuda Leib was in a hurry to retrieve his father, and so he turned and left the crow to its vain hopping without asking the details of its bargain.

But it would’ve served him to learn:

Lord Mammon is cunning.

And everyone knows: he rarely deals plainly.

—

Even having come through the Treasure House, Yehuda Leib found the room behind the double doors strange.

At the far end, a gilded throne sat empty on a high dais. Before the throne, there was a table of pure marble, intricately figured, with innumerable instruments of inspection branching out on thin, swinging arms: a gas lamp, a jeweler’s loupe, probes and saws, chisels, gouges, and syringes.