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“You don’t know?” Asked Conor, “We’re in the neighbours' deep. You know - Number Seven.”

Bethany’s eyes flashed with grief and confusion. But before she could speak, Sara boomed - “Have we forgotten why we are here? I am here for my mother; are you not both here for yours? But somehow that little wretch tore us from him. We made our sacrifice, now let us enjoy what we paid for.”

Catherine’s great eye created a lens for the boy through which he could see Ella. They were ready. She asked, “What do you think, little one? Do you have the strength to take us up?”

Ella would strike any moment unless he did. He slowly reached for the knife and pulled it slowly from its shoelace sheath. He prayed the man without eyelids would accept his sacrifice as he leapt forward. He and Ella had been of one mind. He plunged his knife into Catherine’s left eye. It went straight through the great, clear eyelid and into the white. Ella had been more successful; her knife had gone straight into the great slitting pupil of her right eye. They held onto their knives as the serpent threw its great body and pulled them both off the branch. Ella had dug her knife in far, twisting and burrowing it further and through to the soft nerves behind it. The other two serpents threw themselves at them, but they were too late. Ella and Conor were hurtling down towards the earth. Conor could see himself about to plunge headfirst into the ground below, and he prepared to feel his chin snap through his jaw and out the back of his neck. Everything went black as he was pulled straight down through the ground. Instead of the neighbour's spiral staircase, they were pulled right through and landed beside the neighbour next to a pair of beds he didn’t recognise. He’d never been upstairs in Mr Armitage’s house before.

He watched then as two small snakes, their white skin dripping red as they emerged from the reopened wound in the neighbour's hip, creeping down and over his legs, across the floor and up the trouser legs of the man without eyelids. Sitting across the room from him, he heard his laugh. It made Conor feel ill. He reached to his left and grabbed his sister's hand.