The morning after Mira stayed over at his apartment (Get your mind out of the gutter!) he was running late for work (Out, I say!) He jogged to the train station but he didn’t have a shift that morning. His business was elsewhere.

After accessing his secret maze of tunnels throughout the Hedge from his office in the train station, he quickly changed into appropriate attire and sprinted to the distant Door. He paused before it to catch his breath and checked his watch, adding 14 hours. Less sighed in relief. It was still a few minutes before midnight. He waited until the last moment, wiping dry the sweat dripping from his forehead, and opened the Door.

The night air was acrid with some kind of industrial smoke. There were no stars visible. Less stepped into the street and tugged his scarf higher up his neck. He no longer felt the cold but it somehow made him feel more secure. The street was deserted.

He fished around in his bag for a box of matches. He was suddenly gripped with fear that he had somehow forgotten them. How? How could he have forgotten? With relief he found it in his coat pocket. He struck the match on the wall of the derelict shop. The flare illuminated a lantern with a clean shade of green glass. It looked out of place on the decrepit building. Lowering the glass over the lit candle, he leaned into the shop doorway to wait.

It wasn’t long before a small crowd began to approach. They came hesitantly, two by two. They gathered in the occult green glow of the lamp, looking around at each other with fearful eyes. One figure, far taller than the rest reached out to knock on the door when Less stepped forward, suddenly appearing out of shadow. There was a collective wail of fear and several of the children dashed away to hide. Less breathed in the emotion and savoured it before addressing the woman in charge of the dozen or so children. The oldest was possibly twelve; no more, certainly.

“You have the payment?” he asked simply, holding out his hands as if to carry something. Most of his contacts here could not speak English.

She nodded and shrugged the sack she had carried slung across her back. Less looked inside and counted the bulging insulated foil bags. Only a fraction of the box he had supplied to her people. They didn’t need resupplying just yet.

Less nodded and the woman left without a word, and didn’t look back. He took his satchel off over his head and set it on the ground and knelt beside it. He drew back the flap and took out one of the brightly coloured lollypops and brandished it tantalizingly before the awed children. An older boy came forward and snatched it away and Less replaced it with a fist-full of more candy from the bag. It would draw them all in, even the ones that had skedaddled earlier.

Less rose and surveyed his new charges, all devouring the sugar in relative silence. He beckoned and opened the Door once again. The sight of the tunnel stretching away behind the old door caused a new wave of fear (which he happily ate) but all it took was another beckon to get them to cross the threshold. He had no idea what stories the people who collected these children told them to prepare them for this journey. All he knew was that, whatever it was, it wouldn’t prepare them for the reality. Their parents had given them up, perhaps with the hope that they would find a better life in America, perhaps for money. He would do what he could to get them to parents wanting to circumvent the restrictive adoption process. The Bleak Seal would profit handsomely from the proceeds, and he had a sack full of sweet, young blood.

He shook a shiver from his body. Why had he thought that? Sweet, young blood? Disgusting!