Splayed across the easternmost section of the courtyard lay the dust-caked organs of several small animals. When Rodolphe appeared with the frog, the other children screamed and rushed around him with their hands outstretched, each wanting to hold it before the others. They tore the frog open and examined its beating heart, standing open-palmed and wide-eyed, pulling at its ropy intestine until it came unraveled completely. Rodolphe was the center of this excited joy and his cheeks burned red with pride. He was round and short and tough, with thick brown eyebrows hanging over his eyes, and the bottom of his jaw protruding roundly so that his smile looked idiotic and reassuring.
Lea had ridden out farther than ever. Turning right on the departementale, the bicycle had carried her along the road, black and long, splitting the green fields and abandoned farms, pressed down by the sky, a heavy grey dome that seemed made of cement. Yes she was nowhere now, and the air felt thick and moist, pressing her jumpsuit to her tired legs. The tears had stopped after the second uphill, and soon she was far away from Florian’s dead body, the way his chest heaved against the sheets and that awful machine stealing his piss every day and night.
Lea stood atop the hill looking down at the road ahead, and the road behind, with nothing recognizable, and rain swelling in the black clouds overhead. Two hills away she could see a tall, thin structure piercing the smudged horizon. Lea wondered what could possibly be inside. A place away from the rain. A dry place. She got back on the bicycle and started pedaling, a furious sign of life on a long, dead road.
The sky sputtered and rumbled, and soon small tendrils of lightning could be seen reaching from the clouds down into the forestlands. Lea gripped the handlebars to avoid getting sucked up into the sky. Her limbs were thin and hollow like an ant’s, and she feared being torn apart, each limb plucked from her and spread by the wind like so many dandelion seeds. The rain began falling in small drops at first, but before long it grew heavy, pushed slantwise by the storm.
Before Lea cleared the first hill, she was entirely soaked and could only hear the deep growl of thunder filling the air and surrounding her, angry, whispering as the men do between clenched teeth, when—crack—lightning struck an elm to her right, going unnoticed so hard was Lea’s struggle to keep the bicycle moving up the incline. High also spun the arcs of water flung from her tires, splashing Lea’s back and lost in the general flooding of her person, wheels barely splitting the water anymore, and Lea’s hair now matted to her head, mouth open to reveal her bottom teeth trembling, chattering.
Clearing the hill she began to gain speed, downslope with her stomach getting smaller and her feet pedaling into the endless vacuum ahead and below. The wobbling was now so intense that it flung her little body from side to side. Lea screamed until her voice lost its human qualities, forming alongside the droning rain a shrill mono-syllable like that of an industrial saw, open mouth filling with rain water, eyes epileptic. Instinctively the child began to assume fetal position as the bicycle swerved right and the front tire struck a milestone, and again Lea was flung through the air, this time into a rain-filled ditch, where her open mouth was instantly flooded with muddy water, rotten weeds, and insects. Underwater she struggled to find footing, clawing with her hands and feet at the soft mire, until finally she managed to emerge from the ditch, sputtering filth from her still-screaming mouth, a nightmarish apparition, a childish golem scrambling up the bank and onto the road where she collapsed, unhurt, crying and screaming as the rain began to wash her.
After a long fit of coughing, Lea vomited brown water and began unzipping her jumpsuit. She resembled a snake molting clumsily in the middle of the road until finally the child had kicked free of the muddy clothing. The storm drains were clogged and the water rose steadily but Lea did not hurry to her feet, opting instead to lay naked on her back and stare at the sky. Behind the clouds a blue fire raged calmly, thunder lost in the rainfall. Heat slowly drained from her body. The cold would carry her if she stopped fighting. It had been there before her, and it would remain after she was gone. The choice was not hers.
Fists balled, she rolled onto her stomach and struggled onto her hands and knees. Her hair like a black shroud fallen about her face, the sound of her wild breath existing only as an echo in that nascent darkness. Burning cheeks. Aching eyes. The bicycle. She could see flashes of rust in the flooded ditch and this caused her to rise uneasily and scramble towards it. Fingers curled between the spokes, Lea pulled the front wheel with all her might, leaning backwards, feet scraping on the wet asphalt until the machine began slowly moving through the water. The veins in her neck bulged and she was making slow progress when she lost her footing, slipped, and disappeared beneath the waterline. Her fingers continued to grip the wheel and Lea held her breath, careful not to inhale any more water. Quickly she rose again. Making sharp little noises, teeth bared, eyes squinting, rain beating around her small shape, Lea dragged the bicycle from the ditch and into the shallows. Knowing the hardest part was now behind her, the child sat in the slow-moving water to catch her breath, one hand resting on the wheel, afraid the bicycle might be carried off again to disappear into what seemed like an ocean come to swallow everything. The faint outline of a smile was visible between the long black strands of her wet hair.
Soon the rain lessened and fissures of blue-grey light appeared in the cloud cover. The thunder came sparsely now and the lightning had receded into the distance, blanching the horizon at ever-widening intervals. When she no longer felt the bike might float away, Lea rose and picked up the jumpsuit, wrung it out, and slung it over her bare shoulder. She pushed the bicycle upright and held the handlebars as she rolled it up the hill.
It was no castle. When it came into view again, Lea could see it was just a tower at the top of the hill, an ordinary cylinder of grey cement stuck there by the side of the road, covered in black graffiti. Lea propped her bicycle against the side of the windowless structure and walked back onto the road. A cement path led to a door at the base of the tower. Rain trickled down the sanded metal. It shone like the inside of an oyster shell, and Lea stood transfixed by the streaking light. The handle was thin and sharp, hurting Lea’s hands as she pulled with no results. Eventually and after much stubborn effort, the door swung on its hinges, emitting a long and plaintive sound. The darkness inside was absolute. Lea stood at the threshold of this black place and dared not cross it. The door felt hard and cold on her shoulder blades, but Lea refused to let it push her inside. She pressed her hair to her nose but it was too wet to provide any comfort, so she suckled on the cold tips of her fingers and squatted in the doorway, staring into the darkness, holding the door ajar with her lower back, half-expecting Christophe to appear. Small glints here and there. The sound of chafing cloth. Lea held three fingers in her mouth. Slowly her eyes began to adapt to the darkness and she could see many objects gleaming at foot-level, and a staircase leading up to a second floor, sketched in faded gold, then undulating brightly until a shape appeared, a candle floating in the darkness, and the hand clutching it: ancient, thin, pale. Behind the candle a face with no eyebrows, framed in filthy grey hair, two eyes very wide, and a mouth like a small prune. The old woman stood in the stairway, smiling at the child.