The only reason I tried to summon the devil was that I would have regretted not trying it. It seemed a good way evaluate my talents. On my birthday, I dragged my friend Sally in a taxi to the edge of the Downs. Our eyes soon adjusted to the June night, and we found our way to Chanctonbury Ring, while I explained my plan.

The tradition says that, if you walk seven times round Chanctonbury Ring on a full moon near midnight, the devil will offer you soup in return for your soul. People say a lot of things, but this had stuck in my head particularly. The story makes little sense, but it was the soup that attracted me. We nipped at whisky as we made our laps of the trees, taking it carefully to avoid tripping, with my own Thermos of soup in my backpack.

My friends call me the Soup Witch. Back in the noughties I had too much time free time on my hands. I wanted to learn to cook one thing really, really well and I picked soup.

Soups are healthy and you can’t go wrong with them. A decent hunk of bread and the right ingredients and it comes out pretty well. But I wanted to make them amazing. I had a notebook full of tables and diagrams: how to cut the vegetables, how long to cook them for. I’d make two pans side-by-side, so I could compare subtle factors. It was an excuse to invite people over, although they had to give me their analysis in return.

I did start getting good at it. People suggested I should write a book or start a Youtube channel or even a soup restaurant. I still might. But I had other ambitions first. In my backpack was the best soup I could make, rendered down from years of experience.

The moonlight made it easy to follow the path to the trees, the world repainted in bluish-black. We left a tea light lantern to mark our circuits. I’d not expected it to work, but it seemed more fun than sitting in a pub drinking away my birthday.

I’d wondered if we were going to encounter anyone else, but we seemed to have the whole place to ourselves. We were coming towards the end of our final circuit when we almost walked into someone coming the other way, wearing too much black.

“Jesus!” I said. “You made me jump.”

“Sorry. I thought you’d both heard me coming.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“Someone called me.”

Sally gripped my arms and hid behind me. I was scared too, but tried my best to hide it. “Are you…” It sounded like something stupid to actually say it. So I settled for, “Do you have the soup?”

“I don’t really do that any more,” he said. “And it was a sort of in-joke anyway.”

You don’t expect meeting the Devil to be awkward. “No it’s OK, we bought some for you.”

I slipped off the backpack and took out the thermos, offered it to the Devil. Inside was a warm, paprika-y soup that I’d designed just for tonight, one that would cope well with being carried in a flask for a couple of hours. The devil took the cup, opened the seal and poured some for himself.

“So you haven’t planned to sell your souls?” he asked. “Either of you?“

“No, I just wanted to know if my soup is any good.”

And suddenly I was nervous. Coming up here was a fun way to spend the evening, better than emptying our wallets into a pub. I’d not expected it to actually work. I couldn’t bear to watch as the Devil lifted the cup to his mouth.

“This is pretty good. I think it might be the best soup I’ve ever tasted.”

“Oh god, thank you!”

“I have to go now, but I am sure I will be in touch.”

And with that, the Devil was gone. I didn’t know what to say or do. I was delighted and in shock. Sally handed me the whiskey. “You know,” she said, “He’s gone off with your Thermos.”

Sometimes, people ask me what the best soup I ever made was. I never tell them the straight truth, because who’d believe it. Once, I made soup for the devil.

Background

This is another story inspired by someone I used to know in Brighton, but have lost touch with. Their commitment to soup was less than this narrator’s, but the idea has stuck with me.

I’ve always been a more enthusiastic cook than a talented one, but food culture fascinates me. I made a one-man show about curry (only performed once, but people said it was pretty good). I’m also very slowly writing a series of horror stories about Swedish pizza for my friend Lou. (Why Swedish pizza? Check this link for an idea.)

The tradition about the Devil at Chanctonbury Ring is an odd one. Why soup? I wish I knew.

Recommendations

I’ve struggled to concentrate on reading this year, but I still love it when a good book grabs me, like Catherine Lacey’s Biography of X did last week. It’s a strange novel, which starts out being about a widow wanting to correct a biography of her wife. The narrator talks about X’s adventures through the New York art world, encountering real-life people such as David Byrne. The book itself features real life quotes and artworks, but twisted into X’s story. On top of everything else, the book is set within an alternate reality where a wall was built between Southern and Northern states in the USA, with the South becoming a theocracy. It’s a book that should feel overstuffed, but the alternate histories of X and the USA work well together. I picked up the book based on a single review and took it on a trip to Sweden. I didn’t get into it on that trip, but I was gripped on my second try.

New Story Collection

My new story collection is available on etsy, just £4 including UK postage. Memetic Infection Hazards contains 25 strange new stories.