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.

Skillful. Australia is full of dark secrets, unholy places. It will be easy to navigate the kid towards the Throne. It’s lucky she was born at a time when free travel is so easy; she already speaks two languages and is learning a third from her new dad. The child doesn’t talk at all the whole night. She sometimes glances at her father and sometimes at me as if she can see me. Who knows, maybe she can. Maybe she can already see everything. Maybe I’m the one who is blind to the world’s things, an old monster lagging way behind.

They leave around midnight. As a farewell gift I give a nightmare to the demon, and he gives me a lock of hair from a burnt Barbie doll. Csaba gives a present to the girl as well. I feel my heart sinking when I see that it’s Judas Priest’s Killing Machine album. The first album I gave to Csaba. Csaba transferred the uncontested right to the Throne to his daughter by giving her a present. Now even if he wanted to he couldn’t take the Throne.

I will never reach my final form.

They leave, and with that my work is finished.