Gergő smiled. ‘It doesn’t happen often. If it does, it goes to waste unless we get another child quickly somehow.’

The upstairs room was only used at harvest time. Otherwise it was kept locked. Andrea helped to carry the necessary things upstairs. The fresh snail oil had already cooled down.

‘We have to hurry,’ Erzsébet said. ‘It solidifies quickly and then it’s no good anymore.’

They fished out seven Tupperware containers from the kitchen cupboards. They filled them with water, threw a magnesium capsule into each, as well as a handful of gravel and two spoonfuls each of salt and sugar. They then spit into all of them. Andrea mixed up the contents of the containers, then took them upstairs. In the upstairs room stood an old bed; generations had stained it with their bodies. On the bed lay handcuffs, attached to chains secured to the floor. The chains and handcuffs were new. Andrea almost dropped the plastic tubs she was carrying at the sight of the bed and the chains.

‘It’s for the children’s sake,’ Erzsébet said.

The price that Hugó had paid included room and board, plus participation in the harvest. Working with the essence was the only thing that Hugó was forbidden to take part in. Men were not allowed to be present upstairs, not even the fathers. Entry to the room was strictly limited to Erzsébet, Mama, the given child, and its mother.

Andrea waited outside the door in case they called for her to get something from the kitchen. The children went in one by one. They always screamed; some right away, some quite late in the process. One of them had to be dragged into the room. Andrea felt sick hearing the screams but always felt relief when the children left the room. There was no apparent sign of physical harm on them, aside from the marks of the handcuffs.

When Nóra walked into the room with that subtle smile on her face, Andrea knew right away there was something wrong. She was quickly proven right.

‘Up to what age can you do this?’ Hugó asked his host downstairs, because he had read contradictory information on the internet.

Gergő gave the question some thought.

‘Until twenty-five, give or take. After that you shouldn’t touch the essence. But usually by that time you can’t anyway. You know how it is with young people, they get spoiled way before that. I got spoiled when I was seventeen. My Erzsébet spoiled me. We got married not long after. You know how it is.’

Hugó nodded like someone who knew.

‘You can’t start it too soon either,’ Gergő went on. ‘You can first take it out when they’re seven or eight, sooner than that might cause severe harm.’

Upstairs Mama started shrieking.

Nóra’s face was red where her father had hit her.