While her father wrestled again with the depths of the earth, Emese stepped up to the first larva. It was one-and-a-half meters long; Emese would have just fit inside it. The chain disappeared into its body through a hole. She hoped that the larva had found some pleasure in swallowing the bait; although according to some, the larva is the bait itself, only transformed, enlarged, turned into the seed of life.

The women grabbed the larva and turned it upside down. Erzsébet took the drill in her hands and pointed the end of it against the larva’s skin.

‘What are you doing that for?’ Emese asked.

‘If I don’t make an asshole for it, it will die later on, dear. Every animal needs an asshole, didn’t you know that?’ She smiled sweetly at the girl, then with a quick movement she drilled a hole into the larva and expanded the opening with a knife. Black blood dripped onto the ground.

‘The mouth is no problem, it was created when it took the bait. But we couldn’t manage without the other hole. That’s where you put the essence in.’

Emese nodded, but she felt sick to her stomach at the sight of the wriggling larva. The next larva was pulled out of the earth, and yet another mirror cracked in the distance.

It went on for hours.

Hugó was tired but radiating with happiness. Although there was a shower in their room he had washed himself in a barrel along with the other men. He felt a kinship with them now. He opened a can of beer. Andrea watched her husband from the bed.

‘Are you happy?’ she asked, for that was the only thing that mattered now.

Hugó smiled.

‘I have never been happier.’

At dawn Nóra sneaked into Emese’s room and slipped into bed next to her. Emese smelled the odor of tobacco on her breath.

‘What is it?’ she asked drowsily.

‘Feri is waiting outside,’ Nóra said. ‘He can do you in the shed. It would mean a lot to him, and it doesn’t really matter to you, does it? You’re a city girl.’

Emese buried her face in the pillow in annoyance.

‘Leave me alone!’ she whimpered. ‘I’m not sleeping with your idiot brother!’

Nóra shrugged.

‘As you wish.’

The essence is traditionally handled by the women in the family; only blood relatives can touch it, usually the mother or the grandmother. The larvae live for twenty-four to thirty-six hours without the essence. The final phase of the harvest must be completed before that.

‘Seven mirrors broke last night,’ Gergő said. ‘That means seven essences for seven larvae.’

Hugó took a bite from the sausage prepared for breakfast. Many of the men were still sleeping on couches and in sleeping bags. The women were up to prepare the day’s work.

‘What happens when there are more larvae than children?’ Andrea asked.