"Be careful what you crave in the shadows, for the Three Sisters grant every wish with a jagged edge. In this kingdom of ghosts and gold, the price of envy is a debt that can never be paid—only repeated."

Beneath a sky of bruised and "venomous purple," where the river's "relentless plink" tolls the knell of a pauper's soul, dwells Jacob—a man consumed by a "black fury" and a "simmering rage." From the threshold of a "shack that seems to lurch and sway," he gazes upon the Mallory estate, those "insolent constellations of wealth" that glitter like cold stars to mock his misery.

Driven by a "cold seed" of resentment, he rows his "leaky boat" into the "gullet of some great beast" —the forbidden upper river. There, amidst the "skeletal sentinels" of the swamp, he invokes the Three Sisters, the "hunger in the dark." They offer the "gold of a hundred sunken ships," yet they speak in riddles of a "seed" and a "harvest."

The gold is granted, ancient and "deadly cold," but the harvest is a "spectacle of wealth and sorrow." For as Jacob ascends to his "kingdom of ghosts," his daughter's lungs fill with the "silty river water" of the damned, and his wife becomes a "beautiful, empty shell" with a "mechanical" smile.

Now, trapped in an "eternal hell," Jacob discovers that the rope upon the banister is no mere tool, but a "permanent part of the house." "All sins come with a price," and in this "magnificent prison," the debt is paid in a cycle that never ends.