13

Ella didn’t mind his half-truths. She’d expected his first day in his deep to have been that day at the beach. Ella had been born with her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. She’d met the man without eyelids before she’d met her own mother.

“Did you ever speak to him?” asked Ella.

“No,” replied Conor, “did you?” Conor realised then that he’d always assumed he couldn’t speak. “What did he say?”

Ella smiled and shook her head gently, and Conor knew that there was no sharing with others what he’d said to you privately. He could tell then that the second passenger trusted Ella while he still, even after all these years, was quietly testing Conor. To see whether he was ready for whatever he may call on him to do.