That was true; he couldn’t father children – unless I let him.

That night I did. Neither of them were fans of safe sex. After that night they never met again.

Until now. He sees her approaching the gate and at first he can’t quite place her. It’s been years. But finally it comes back to him, although he doesn’t yet understand, not even when he sees the child.

‘She’s yours,’ says the girl, who is now a woman.

Her name is Ildikó Kőhegyi, and she still has the tattoo on her arm, although she has been checking online to see how she can get rid of it. Csaba is not interested in the woman right now, neither am I. He is watching the little girl. She has her father’s eyes, dark green and deeply sad; her mouth is her mother’s. A beautiful, beautiful girl. Oh, how I wish I could take care of her. But it can’t be so.

Another one like me stands behind her; I greet him with a nod. The thing nods back and reveals his true form to me, and I return the gesture. This is the first time in my life I’ve met my own kind, and my heart pangs with pain at the thought that he was created in one of the forges of the universe only a few years ago. I had long been roaming the Earth by the time his soul was linked to the girl I created. I felt old. I wonder whether he cried when the girl was born. I wonder whether he will also protect his own as I protected Csaba. I have so many things to ask him, and I sense he feels the same, but we remain silent. We have a lot of questions, but nothing to say to each other; each has to follow his own path.

I failed; it’s his turn now to fail or succeed. My time is past. The girl is the new heir to the Throne; Csaba and I have become wasted opportunities. I look at the demon and the girl standing next to each other. They fit together well. They are just as much my children as they are Csaba’s. I feel joy and sadness at the same time; I see life and death staring at one another.

Csaba barely speaks a word the entire night. He watches the little girl; he sucks up the stories about his child, one after the other. He doesn’t even ask Ildikó why she didn’t come back to him with their daughter, why she didn’t sue him for child support, why she didn’t abort her. How could she have, such a beautiful little girl? Such a little angel? And, of course, I guided Ildikó’s hands for a long while.

She tells stories about her. We step on them like stones over a river, we jump from one to the other, until we arrive to the present time. They are leaving the country forever. They’re moving to Australia, with Ildikó’s new boyfriend; she only wanted the little girl to see her father for the first and last time. It’s the demon’s work, I know. I nod to the girl’s demon.