Yehuda Leib launched himself across the street, grabbed the little demon by the lapels of his coat, and slammed him again and again against the snowy ground, and all the while, crazed, manic, the demon was repeating it—it’s mine, it’s mine—and with the third impact, the glowing glass bottle slipped from his clutching fingers, and Yehuda Leib hurled the demon aside and began to crawl toward it, but in a flash, Mammon was on top of him, laying all his weight between Yehuda Leib’s shoulder blades, twisting his reaching arm painfully back, smashing his face down into the snow, and “Oh no, you don’t,” he said, “that’s not yours, you dirty little thief,” and Yehuda Leib couldn’t move him, couldn’t budge, couldn’t even turn his face toward the light, and he thought his arm would break, and he called out:

“Rebbe, Rebbe, please!”

And then he saw it, lying just where it had been dropped, only an arm’s length distant, crumpled, dark, trampled over in the snow: his mitten.

His salt-filled mitten.

Mammon was exultant, laughing, twisting his arm, reaching for the light with his long, bare toes, and he failed to notice Yehuda Leib’s other arm stretching out through the snow.

With a buck and a flip, Yehuda Leib threw Mammon from his back, and, grabbing, sprinkling, he sent a hail of salt raining down on top of him.

There was a sudden stillness.

Slowly, Mammon began to sizzle, and then to smoke. Large splotchy burns materialized in a spray across his skin where the salt had fallen. Clawing at his face and rolling in the snow, Mammon retreated backward into the snowy night with a bloodcurdling screech.

And, just like that, his terror and anger echoing behind him, Mammon was gone.

Yehuda Leib wasted no time. In the barest moment, he had the light in his hands again, and he called out once more:

“Rebbe!”

—

The snow fell softly, and the Messenger of Death drew near the Rebbe of Zubinsk. Slowly, the dancing Hasidim began to circle them both.

“Holy Rebbe,” said the Dark One with a sigh. “Oh, holy Rebbe. They have taught me a new and cruel sorrow.”

“Who?” said the Rebbe of Zubinsk.

“Your Hasidim,” said the Dark One. “They have given me welcome. They have called me friend. And only I know that they are mistaken.”

The Rebbe frowned. “How?”

The Dark One shook his head as if to dislodge this question from his ear. “Hmm?”

“How do you know that they are mistaken?”

“Why, I know it.”

The Rebbe’s frown deepened. “How?”

There was a cry from the darkness—somewhere, nearby, a boy in distress—and the Rebbe turned over his shoulder to look.

There, beyond the dancers, in the gloomy fall of snow, could he see a shining light?