The Sickle and the Salt

It was the last weekend of summer before the harvest fair, and my cousin Delia, who had just turned fourteen, had invited three of her friends to stay at our farmhouse. The house was old, built by my great-grandfather, and it creaked in ways that made you think of bones. My name is Marcus, and I was nineteen, home from college for the season. I’d always been the one who read about the strange, the unexplained, but I was also the one who warned against messing with things we didn’t understand. Delia and her friends—Tessa, Liv, and Bea—were all giggly and full of daring, and they’d gotten it into their heads that they wanted to summon something. They’d found an old spirit board in the attic, hidden under a loose floorboard, wrapped in moth-eaten cloth. It wasn’t like the commercial ones you see in stores; the wood was dark and warped, and the letters were carved, not painted, and there was a symbol in the center—a sickle and a salt shaker, of all things, which I later learned was an old family sigil for warding off winter demons.

I tried to talk them out of it. I told them about my theory: that any board not made by a reputable company was dangerous, and that even the reputable ones could open doors. But Delia pleaded with me, saying they’d read that five people could generate more energy, and they had only four. She promised we’d use protection. I gave in, but I took precautions. I went online and searched for a hour for ways to banish negative entities. I found a list of items: salt, iron, white sage, and a specific prayer to Saint Michael. We set up in the master bedroom, which had the thickest walls and faced east. We lit seven white candles, placed a circle of salt around the board, and I hung a small iron horseshoe above the door. We sat cross-legged, and the five of us touched the glass, which was actually a small crystal decanter top that my grandmother used to use.

We started with a simple call: ‘Is there anyone here who wishes to speak?’ The room was quiet, the only sound the flicker of candle flames and the wind outside rattling the window. For a long while, nothing. The girls were getting restless, giggling, and Delia rolled her eyes. But then the glass twitched—just a tiny jolt, as if it had hiccuped. My heart jumped. I tightened my grip, feeling the cool smoothness of the crystal. The glass moved again, more deliberately, sliding to ‘Yes’. A chill ran through me. I asked, ‘Who are you?’ The glass spelled ‘M-E-L-I-S-S-A’. I didn’t know any Melissa. Delia whispered that maybe it was a spirit of the land. But then the glass moved faster, spelling ‘LET ME CHANGE YOU’.

I felt a surge of wrongness, like the air pressure dropped. The candles flickered wildly, and one went out. I pulled my hand away, but the others kept their fingers on the glass. It was as if it were magnetized. The glass slid to the center, to the symbol of the sickle, and then shot to ‘Z’ and ‘O’ and ‘M’ and ‘B’ and ‘I’ and ‘E’. Delia’s eyes widened, and she said, ‘Zombie?’ I shivered. I tried to break the circle by removing my hand, but it felt like my fingers were glued. The glass went on: ‘YOU ARE FIVE BUT ONE SHALL LEAVE’. I fought to pull back, feeling a cold that was like ice in my veins. Then, abruptly, the glass stopped, and all the candles went out at once, plunging us into darkness.

We all screamed, and I scrambled for the lamp. When the light came on, the board was in the middle of the room, but the glass was gone. We searched everywhere, but it was as if it had dissolved. The salt circle was broken, with a clear gap like something had stepped through. For the rest of the night, we stayed huddled in the kitchen, too scared to sleep. I tried to rationalize it, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that we had invited something in. The next morning, we went back to the bedroom to clean up. The candles were all burnt down to nubs, and the board was still there, but the symbol in the center—the sickle and the salt—was now different. The sickle was pointing down, and the salt shaker was overturned. Delia’s friend Bea was quiet, not her usual chatty self. She said she had a headache and wanted to go home early. Delia, Tessa, and I stayed, but the mood was ruined.

Over the next few weeks, strange things began to happen. At first, it was little: bowls in the kitchen would be overturned, salt spilled in lines on the floor, and we found odd scratches on the doorframes. Then Delia started sleepwalking. I found her in the middle of the night standing in the yard, facing the cornfield, repeating the word ‘Harvest’ over and over. I’d wake her, and she’d have no memory of it. Tessa called to say she’d had nightmares of a woman with a sickle who would loom over her bed, whispering about ‘the change’. I began to research the symbol. I found an old diary in the attic, written by my great-great-grandmother, who had practiced folk magic. She described a ritual to ‘bring in the winter grain’ by offering a soul to a spirit called Malacoda, who was said to be a harvester of secrets. The ritual involved five participants, a board with that symbol, and a glass. She had written a warning: ‘If the glass does not break, the bargain is sealed, and the one who least expects shall be taken.’

Panic set in. I tried to tell Delia, but she dismissed me, saying I was overreacting. But I saw the signs. Delia was changing. She’d lost her appetite, and her eyes had a hollow look. She started speaking in a monotone, and sometimes I’d catch her staring out the window at the field, which was now ready for harvest—golden and swaying. My parents were away on a trip, so it was just us and the haunted house. I decided we needed to confront it. I found the old diary again and read the banishment ritual. It required iron, salt, a sickle, and a prayer to Saint Michael, but also the participation of all five who were present at the original summoning. Bea had moved across the state, but I got her on the phone, and she agreed to drive back. It was a rainy, miserable day. We set up in the same room, with the white candles and salt. But this time, we also had an iron stake from the barn, and I had a bottle of holy water from the church. We all placed our hands on the board—I had to use a small drinking glass as the planchette because we could never find the original.

We began to pray, asking for protection. Nothing moved. Then, Delia’s eyes rolled back, and a voice that wasn’t hers boomed out: ‘You cannot unwrite what is written. The contract is signed with five, and the fifth must pay.’ I looked at Delia, and she was grinning in a way that was alien. I knew then that she was the one being targeted. The spirit had said ‘the one who least expects’—and I think we all expected one of the girls, not me, but Delia was the one I least expected because she was my blood. I had to act fast. I grabbed the iron stake and held it to Delia’s chest, shouting ‘In the name of God, leave her!’ The voice laughed, and the candles went out. I felt cold hands on my throat, squeezing. I couldn’t breathe. I fell to my knees, and I saw the glass, the original crystal one, floating in the air, spinning. It spun faster and faster, and then it shattered into a thousand pieces, slicing us with tiny cuts.

As the glass burst, the room was filled with a deafening scream, and a gust of wind that blew out all the candles and sent the salt flying. When we could see again, Delia was slumped on the floor, unconscious. The board was split in two, the symbol corrupted beyond recognition. We called an ambulance, and Delia recovered after a few days of rest, but she never remembered anything from that night, and she refused to talk about it. To this day, she has occasional moments where she looks at you with a cold, vacant stare, and she’s taken to sleepwalking again, but now she walks with a limp and sometimes carries a kitchen knife, saying she’s ‘going to the field to cut the grain.’ The other girls and I still bear the tiny scars from the glass, but worse, we carry a horror that never quite leaves. We never speak of it, but I know we’re all listening for the sound of a sickle being sharpened in the dark, waiting for the harvest that was promised.

I still have the diary, and I’ve studied it. I found a footnote that said the contract can be voided only if a sacrifice is made willingly. I fear I may have to offer myself, but I’m not sure if that would even work, because the spirit claimed the bargain is ‘sealed with five’. Perhaps we’ve all been marked, and one of us will be taken, regardless. I’ve started carrying salt in my pockets and refusing to sleep in any room without an iron horseshoe over the door. But what I fear most is that Delia, in her sleepwalking trances, might one day follow the call and never return. And I’ll have to live with the fact that I let them play with the board, that I didn’t stop it sooner. The sickle hangs above our field, a reminder that some bargains can’t be undone.