Horned demon face with pentagram design

It has rained on Lantern Row every day since you left, and the gutters over Pryce's stall have given up altogether, so the water comes off the tarpaulin in a sheet and runs straight down the middle of the aisle. I spent the morning sweeping it toward the drains with a yard broom and getting nowhere. Mrs Pryce says the market always floods when someone is owed money, and she keeps a list of who.

This afternoon I found a drawing behind the tin trunk of old pantomime costumes. It was done in pencil on thick cream paper, a horned face scowling out of a cloud of dark smudged shading, the brows pressed so hard the paper has dented. Beneath the chin someone had sketched an upside-down star and let its lines run downward in long drips. Mrs Pryce took one look and said it was Alf's devil from the Christmas panto at the Palace, and that he drew it to keep the rain off.

I asked her how a drawing could do that. She shrugged and said he was always a contrary old goat. Then she pinned it to the tarpaulin frame, scowl facing the car park, and went to put the kettle on. The rain had thinned to a drizzle before the kettle boiled, and by the time the man from the bakery came to see what the fuss was, the sky over the Row had cleared all the way to the bus station.

I have not taken the drawing down. The bakery man has asked whether he could buy it, and I have said no, because I am not sure the sky would stay clear once he carried it off. Mrs Pryce has crossed two names off her list this week. The devil's brows still look furious, but the star has dried to a neat pale line, and I think even he is glad of a dry afternoon.

Yours, in a dry pair of socks for once, Ruth