‘Your wish will be fulfilled if the Nameless Lords want it,’ said the priest and placed a knife in the girl’s hands.

‘Give us one of your fingers to start with,’ he continued, and Leila complied without hesitation.

As Leila screamed with pain and joy, the crowd cheered her on, and everyone felt that a kind of miracle had happened; that this funeral was worthy of Aunt Márti’s memory, and she would have enjoyed the outcome herself.

Csabi looked at his wife in the car on the way back from the funeral. Why would he even want another woman in his life? It all seemed so foolish now that the funeral was over. He decided he would speak with Aurora over the weekend and then never meet her again afterward to avoid falling prey to temptation.

He smiled at Ágika and his wife smiled back at him. Csabi grabbed her hand.

‘Everything will be all right,’ he said, and he meant it.

Ágika nodded.

‘I know.’

That night they ordered pizza because neither of them felt like cooking. Before going to bed, Csabi went outside to smoke a cigarette. He had bought a pack at the gas station on the way home. Ágika made no comment, and Csabi smiled quietly to himself. He knew he would fall in love with his wife again. He looked over at the neighboring lot. He knew he was being watched, that terrible evil eyes monitored his every step. He took a drag off the cigarette and decided not to care. He had to let go of this fear. Maybe he was being watched, or maybe not, but he couldn’t spend his entire life in fear just because he had joined the church. If they wanted to watch him, let them, he would go on living his life. He put out the cigarette and went inside to go to bed.

‘Do you think that girl really saw something?’ he asked Ágika in bed after switching off the lights.

Ágika didn’t respond for quite a while.

‘She was just imagining it. There are people like that at every funeral. They want to believe too much. They see things that aren’t there. I had a friend like that kid. Same thing happened to her.’

Csabi nodded, but no one could see that in the dark. He fell asleep quickly.

It was then that the night moved on the neighboring lot. Ágika got out of bed as quietly as she could and sneaked out to the front door. She opened it. A figure was walking through the weeds towards the house. It occurred to Ágika for a second that she could still close the door, she could prevent what was about to happen.

The figure reached the door.

‘Did you bring everything?’ asked Ágika.