Camilla Way - Little Bird

One evening at the end of summer she returns from the river to find the man sitting by the hearth. A small fire flickers in the grate. She pauses at the threshold of the cottage, aware immediately that something is terribly wrong. Outside in the dusk, the birds have begun their plaintive evening song and she looks longingly behind her to the twilit forest. The man turns and sees her, and motions for her to come.

When she’s seated next to him she notices that on his lap is a large wooden box she has never seen before. She wonders where it has been hidden for so long. The man’s long silent fingers rest motionless on top of it for a long moment until abruptly and without looking at her he raises the lid and pulls from it a photograph of a young woman. The child cranes forward to see it, her heart skipping with excitement at this sudden, incredible image of another human being. He passes it to her and she takes it eagerly, marvelling over the square of grainy, faded paper, scrutinizing every detail as it lies there in her hands.

The woman is wearing a long green dress and her hair is thick and dark with a heavy fringe. Her smile is shy, secretive; her eyes are lowered to her hands which are clasped neatly together in her lap. The girl takes all this in with wonder until at last she is distracted by the man opening the box for a second time.

Next he pulls out the green dress itself. It’s folded carefully, the fabric faded at the creases and it has a faint whiff of age. He hands it to the girl and indicates for her to put it on. But for a while she just sits with the dress in her lap staring down at the material as if hypnotized, her fingers absently, nervously, stroking the buttons at its neck. And though she doesn’t raise her eyes she feels the air between the two of them crackle with something she cannot begin to understand. At last she turns to him and sees that he is unnaturally still: he doesn’t tremble, doesn’t breathe, doesn’t drop his gaze from hers.

Obediently, she stands and pulls the garment over her head, smoothing it down over her T-shirt and shorts, hoping that the gnawing, twisting feeling beneath her ribs might disappear if she pleases him and does as he asks. But once the dress is on (the sleeves too long, the hem tumbling over her toes) and she is standing before him, her cheeks burning with something she has never felt before, she sees an expression of such pain flood his face that involuntary she gives a little cry and takes a step towards him. Just as she is about to reach for him however she falters and, confused, withdraws and takes her seat again.

A long moment passes before he gets to his feet once more and fetches the large workman scissors from his tool kit. Before she can understand what is happening he has begun to carefully chop at her hair until it matches the woman’s in the picture. He sits back down while she cautiously strokes her newly shorn locks. He continues to stare at her for a long time, and then without warning he begins to cry. She has never seen his tears before and the sight horrifies her.

They sit there, the two of them, and the minutes, the hours pass. The man does not take his eyes from her and she, in turn, does not move, can neither abandon him to his pain nor think of how to comfort him. His tears are awful to her. Night falls; the fire dies in the hearth, and still they sit. Finally, when the cottage is completely dark and she can no longer tell where he begins and the night ends, she creeps into her little bed and lies awake, her heart thumping, while the man and the night sits and waits, sits and waits.

The next morning she rises before the sun and slips from the cottage to wait for the birds. But she takes no pleasure in their song today. She remains there for a long time, long after the sun has climbed above the forest. The small carved bird sits as usual in her lap, her thumb moving over the smooth contours of its head in slow, comforting circles.

When at last she ventures back to the cottage the stone floor is streaked in sunshine. A cloud of midges hangs in the doorway. All is still. She notices that the man is stretched out upon the bed. By his side lie the scissors, their large, clumsy blades streaked in red. She creeps closer. His eyes are open, staring at the ceiling. His left arm is wrist-side up and flung almost nonchalantly from his body. There is a deep, long wound that runs the length of his inner forearm, from wrist to elbow, the flesh and the tendons torn with force by the heavy blades. The wound is so deep she can see the bone. The bed is drenched in blood. The man’s face is blue-white; he does not breathe.

She backs away to the farthest corner of the room and crouches there, her mouth wide with terror until, finally, she begins to scream. Outside, a flock of birds takes sudden flight and her cry rushes after them. Suddenly she springs from her corner, the little carved bird still clasped tightly in her fist, and she flees. Through miles of dense woodland she runs, further and further, long into the night, and the forest screams on around her.

The New York Times

Monday, 15 August 1995

International News – France, Europe (Reuters)

The Bird Child Of Normandy

A female estimated to be 12 or 13 years old has been found in the Forêt de Breteuil area of Normandy, northern France. It is thought that she is Elodie Brun, who was abducted aged two from the nearby town of Le Ferté-Macé and has been missing since 1985.

Lorry driver Marcel Collet spotted the child lying in a ditch as he was driving along the edge of the 20,000-hectare woodlands at 5am Thursday.

‘I thought at first she was roadkill,’ recalls Collet. ‘When I realised it was a little girl I stopped. She was in a bad way. Her feet and legs were bare and bleeding and she was filthy. She seemed very frightened and would not answer my questions. I thought she must have been thrown from a car. It was very surprising, very upsetting, I didn’t know what to do.’

Collet eventually coaxed the child into his lorry so he could take her to hospital in the nearby town of Evreux. ‘My wife had packed some cheese and ham for me,’ he says. ‘That eventually did the trick.’

After two days the child was transferred to L’Hôpital des Enfants in Rouen. ‘It’s an unusual case,’ admits Doctor Bernard Dumas, chief paediatrician. ‘She has been with us for five days and although she appears to be physically well, she has not yet uttered one word.’

Psychiatrist Doctor Cecile Philipe has been monitoring the child closely. ‘We first assumed that her lack of speech was a reaction to some kind of trauma,’ she explains. ‘But it now appears that the child does not recognise human language at all. Instead she tries to communicate by making bird noises. Her range is quite extraordinary – it seems that she has learnt to mimic many different species. When she arrived she was holding a small, wooden bird and became hysterical when we tried to take it from her.’

Despite her lack of speech, the hospital staff have already become fond of their mysterious charge. ‘She’s a lovely kid,’ says Helene Duchamp, head nurse. ‘She’s enchanting. She can become withdrawn and upset sometimes, but often she’s responsive, even affectionate. The noises she makes are fascinating.’

The staff at the hospital call her ‘Little Bird.’

The police investigation continues. If the child is indeed Elodie Brun, the question of where she has been held for the past ten years – and by whom – remains as yet unanswered.

The Sun

14 September 1995

Kidnap girl ‘like wild animal’

As more SICKENING details of the Elodie Brun case emerge, The Sun has learnt that Brun, 12, can only communicate in GRUNTS AND WHISTLES. After 10 years in captivity she is more wild animal than human, experts say. Evil Mathias Bresson, 42, swiped the TRAGIC TOT in 1985 and kept her prisoner in his secret woodland lair. FULL STORY ON PGS 4,5,6,7