76

“Theft and sacrifice mark the same coin. You know it well. You sacrifice nothing. Look at this house. You would give nothing up - nothing of your own. Utterly unwilling to sacrifice, and so you steal. I do not blame you. This house is truly hideous, but I care not. Since it is perfectly natural. But you stole something from me. That was unwise.”

The neighbour went to speak, but the man without eyelids held out a hand and commanded silence - no stuttering attempts at justification.

“I was the very first person to meet Ella. Born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. Nearly another sacrificed firstborn. She visited her deep every day, built everything she had ever seen or thought of there. It was vast and marvellous. I loved her like a father, like I did the other three. The three you stole from me. Ella wanted to travel as I did, traversing deeps. She would constantly ask how to get to Conor’s and whether her other brother even had one, shallow boy. She made many pledges of valueless things for passage, getting ever nearer to something I truly wanted. When she did, I brought her up and told her she could have what she wanted if she made her payment and returned to me what was taken from me. My harvest. You and your bumbling neighbour - hiding them all these years. Tell me, surely you can feel it, are they close?”