Kate Mosse - The Winter Ghosts

‘ Quatre, cinq jours, minimum.’

‘He says-’

‘Four or five days, yes. Can you ask him what he thinks we should do now? Is there a garage in Nulle? Or do we need to think about getting it towed to Tarascon?’

Guillaume turned to his father to start up another lengthy discussion, so I removed myself a little way from their loud voices and sat on a rock. The sun had risen over the mountain and it was, if not actually warm, then at least not properly cold. There was the odd snatch of birdsong, and the air was filled with the smell of pine resin.

I shielded my eyes against the lacy glare of the white sun on the mountains and scanned the slopes below the road. There were no houses, no signs of human habitation that I could see. Guillaume confirmed it. Apart from the shepherds’ huts, deserted in winter, no one lived this high in the valley. It was too harsh an environment, too bitterly cold and exposed.

I lit a cigarette, thinking of what Fabrissa had said. The path along which she and her family had travelled was overgrown with box and… and what? I drummed my fingers on my knee, box leaves and… I got it.

‘Silver birch. Evergreen box trees and silver birch.’

Both were common in this part of France, but I could see both from where I was sitting. The distinctive silver and black markings of a cluster of birch trees and, a little to the right of them, the deep green of box shrubs. Confirmation, surely, I was on the right track?

‘And maybe where I’ll find her…’

‘Monsieur?’ said Guillaume, a quizzical look on his face.

I flushed. ‘Thinking aloud,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘What news? What does your father suggest?’

I tried to pay attention as Guillaume outlined Breillac’s plan, but my thoughts kept slipping back to the patch of earth below us.

‘… if that is agreeable to you, monsieur. If not, we will find another way.’

I realised Guillaume had stopped talking and was looking at me.

‘Forgive me. I didn’t catch that. Could you…?’

Guillaume began again in his slow, steady voice.

‘As my father sees it, there are two…’

Out of the corner of my eye I saw something move in the valley below. A flash of blue, perhaps. I couldn’t tell. I took a step forward and, using the tips of the bare branches of the silver birch as my sight-line, traced a direct line to the hillside on the opposite side of the valley. I narrowed my gaze and hit upon an overhang of grey rock, sheltered by trees. There seemed to be a shelf in the rock and, though it was hard to make out, perhaps an opening, in the shape of an eyebrow.

‘… so given the damage to the chassis,’ Guillaume concluded, ‘my father thinks it is a job for a trained mechanic. An old colleague of his works chez Fontez in Tarascon, so he could get you a good price.’

‘Is it possible to get up over there?’ I pointed south-east at the opposite escarpment.

If Guillaume was offended by my inattention, he didn’t show it.

‘If you keep straight on this road, then drop down near Miglos. Though I don’t know why anyone would want to. There’s nothing there.’

‘What about from this side of the valley? From here? Is there a path up through these woods?’

‘If there is, I don’t know of it.’ He shrugged. ‘There was mining in that section of the mountains, before my time, to open up a new route south. Twenty years ago. It changed the shape of the land and the hills.’ He paused. ‘So it is possible there is a path, but it would be a hard climb.’

‘Yes, it would,’ I murmured, thinking of a courageous girl and a boy too ill to walk far.

Guillaume shifted his weight from foot to foot, impatient to get things set. ‘About the car, monsieur, should we take it to Tarascon? That is acceptable to you?’

Now I knew – suspected – Fabrissa’s cave was there, I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. I dragged my eyes away from the shelf of rock just long enough to tell Guillaume the proposal was fine.

He sighed and gave a thumbs-up sign to his father.

‘ Pierre can wait here with the car while I go to Tarascon to make the arrangements. Father will guide you back to Nulle.’

I hesitated. ‘Actually, Guillaume, do you know what, I think I’ll stay here with the car.’

Guillaume’s eyes grew round. ‘But it will be a long wait, monsieur,’ he objected. ‘ Pierre is happy to remain and keep watch. He is accustomed to the air up here. You should return to the village.’

‘No, I insist,’ I said.

‘But what will you do?’

‘I’ll find something to do to amuse myself. Read a book. I’ll wait in the car if the cold starts to get to me.’ I gave an impatient nod. ‘You go on. The sooner you get going, the sooner you’ll be back.’

Although far from happy, Guillaume realised there was little he could do. He explained to his father and brother. For the first time, Breillac spoke directly to me in the old language of the region, in a voice that resonated with tobacco and old age.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’

A look passed between the brothers, then Guillaume spoke again to his father, before translating for me once more.

‘He is anxious you should not stay. This is a bad place for you to be, he says. An unhappy place.’

‘Oh, come along.’ I smiled. ‘Tell your father I appreciate his concern, but I’ll be fine.’

Breillac stared at me with eyes as hard as buttons.

‘ Trèvas, ’ he growled, jabbing at me with his finger. ‘ Fantaumas.’

I turned to Guillaume. ‘What’s he saying?’

He flushed. ‘That there are spirits in these mountains. ’

‘Spirits.’

‘E’l Cerç bronzís dins las brancas dels pins. Mas non. Fantaumas del ivèrn.’

Breillac’s words were vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t place them. I turned again to Guillaume.

‘He says that although they sing of the Cers wind crying in the trees when the snows come, it is the voices of those trapped in the mountains.’ He hesitated. ‘The winter ghosts.’

A shiver crept down my spine. For a moment, we stood motionless, each wondering what the others might do. Then I clapped my hands together, as at the punch-line to a splendid joke, and laughed. The spell Breillac’s words had cast over us was broken. I refused to be scared by an old man’s superstitions. And Guillaume and Pierre laughed, too.

‘I’ll keep an eye out,’ I said, slapping Guillaume on the back. ‘Tell your father not to worry. You get off now. Tell him I’ll be here waiting, no question of it.’

Breillac fixed me with a hard stare and the intensity of it shook me a little, I don’t mind admitting. But he said nothing more, and after a moment, he turned and beckoned for his sons to follow.

I stood in the middle of the road watching as they grew smaller and smaller. Guillaume and Pierre, steady, sure-footed giants; their father a small, wiry figure walking between them, his shoulders rounded, as if bowed down by the years.

The sight of them moved me. It can’t have been regret, for one cannot mourn what one has never had. The Breillacs were a family. They belonged to one another. I had never experienced that. I’d been connected to my parents by a shared surname and an address, but nothing more than that. I couldn’t recall a single occasion when George, my father and I had done anything together, even taken a simple walk over the Downs from Lavant to East Dean.

George had been my family. He, alone, had loved me. I stopped as another thought marched into my mind. I smiled. Perhaps, in time, Fabrissa might come to love me. The idea shimmered for a moment, glorious and bright, then burst like a firework on Guy Fawkes Night.