A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(113)

“Okay, I get it. Notre-Dame-de-Doleur is unusual—”

“Unique.”

“Maybe. But there’s nothing wrong with unique, is there?”

They looked at each other. The girl who was trying so hard to be different, and the boy who was trying so hard to be the same.

“I guess not,” he conceded, without conviction.

“Monsieur Toponymie was surprised by the name,” Amelia admitted. “But there’re other weird ones around. Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, for instance.”

“There’s really a town called that?”

“Oui. Complete with an exclamation mark after each ‘Ha.’”

“You’re kidding.”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?”

“No, but you sound like you are. Ha ha.”

He caught the faintest upturn at the corners of her mouth. It looked like victory.

“Makes the people in Notre-Dame-de-Doleur seem pretty lucky, doesn’t it?” she said. “It could’ve been worse.”

“It was worse. Roof Trusses.”

But he was impressed that she’d pursued it. Not giving up, where the others had. Where he had.

But did it matter? Even if this was where the village once stood, it wasn’t there anymore.

They sat side by side and looked through the slowly fogging windows.

“It’s gone,” he said.

“You’re missing the point. It might be gone, but it was here once. And I bet some people stayed behind. They always do. Let’s go.”

She got out of the car before he could point out that no one had stayed behind. At least, no one living.

And then he understood what Amelia meant. And what Madame Zardo had meant.

They were six feet under. The remaining villagers were remains.

Notre-Dame-de-Doleur, née Roof Trusses, had become a ghost town.

It took them almost an hour, and they were soaked through and chilled to the bone, but finally they found the cemetery. It had been overcome by the forest, especially lush in that area. The gravestones had sunk and toppled over, but most could still be read. Whoever had made them had etched the names deep into the local granite.

Amelia and Nathaniel barely noticed that the sleet had turned to full-on snow until after they’d examined every gravestone they could find.

Then they turned to each other, the huge spring flakes falling between them.

There was near silence, except for the familiar tapping as the snow landed. On them. On the trees. On the ground.

And they noticed another sound now. A plopping. Plunking. Plinking.

A timpani.

The forest was playing music for them.

An hour later, they walked into the bistro and handed two metal buckets to Olivier.

He looked into them warily, then smiled. “Sap buckets. Where’d you get these?” He placed them on the floor and admired them. “You don’t see originals like this much anymore. And they’re full.”

“We emptied most of the other buckets into these two,” Nathaniel explained.

“Seemed a shame to waste the sap,” said Amelia. “They were in the woods by Roof Trusses.”

“You found it?”

They nodded.

Behind Olivier, over by the fire, Ruth lifted her hand, and when the cadets waved at her, she extended her finger in greeting.

“Does she know what that means?” Nathaniel whispered to Olivier.

He laughed. “She sure does. Do you?”

“Well, it means—”

“It means she likes you,” said Olivier.

Jacques and Huifen were also there. They sat at what they now considered their table in the bistro, with hot chocolates and the map, and nodded to the younger cadets.

But Amelia and Nathaniel walked right by them with just a friendly “Bonjour.” And joined Ruth.

“I’d ask you to sit,” said Ruth, “but I don’t want you to.”

Nathaniel lifted his hand and slowly unfolded his finger. He’d never given anyone the finger. Had wanted to, many, many times. But never had. And the first time he flipped someone off, it was an old woman.

It didn’t seem a good reason to be proud of himself, and yet he was. Between the waves of terror.

Rosa, nesting in Ruth’s lap, muttered, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

And Ruth laughed.

“Oh, what the hell. Sit down, but don’t order anything.”

They took off their wet jackets and hung them on nails by the fire, then moved their chairs a bit closer to the warmth. Ruth leaned toward the cadets and examined them. Soaked through, chilled to the marrow. But happy.

“You found Roof Trusses,” she said, and they nodded. “But did you find the grave?”

*

Clara and Myrna followed Reine-Marie into the historical society in Saint-Rémy. The secretary there confirmed that there’d been a very successful retrospective on the region’s involvement in the Great War.

“Then perhaps you can tell me where all the material is?” asked Reine-Marie.

“We gave it to you, didn’t we?” said the elderly Québécoise volunteer.

“You gave me a lot of boxes,” Reine-Marie confirmed. “And I’ve been through most of them, but I can’t find a single item relating to the First World War.”