Marc’s blood ran in stripes from the wounds on his upturned face. The other boy kept his eyes on Marc until he felt strong enough to crawl towards the ladder. Marc remained motionless, a string of pain running from his swollen nipple down his spine and into the pit of his testicles. He closed his eyes and saw the shape of Rodolphe’s face change with each imagined blow. If he could only find something hard to push into Rodolphe’s mouth, breaking teeth, pink gums pouring blood, Rodolphe choking on the blood and teeth, nose breaking, eye pushed into his skull, skull around his eye cracking, nose pulped and pushed into the skull, cheekbones collapsing, lower jaw shattered and pushed into the mouth, nasal cavity collapsing down the center, splitting the face in two, blood rushing to fill the gap, a soup of blood and cartilage and bone, one big crater expanding from the middle, Rodolphe’s face unrecognizable with both eyeballs submerged until the breathing stopped and his throat filled with blood and the blood pulled into his windpipe and his heart stopped beating, the perfect silence, skull knocked flatter by the blows, and Marc looked at the peaceful red thing gurgling where Rodolphe’s face used to be. When he opened his eyes Rodolphe was gone.
At first Florian did not recognize the sound of Lea’s bare feet on the wooden staircase. He assumed his usual position, that of a corpse, and closed his eyes. But as soon as the girl reached the top of the stairs and reached the carpet, Florian recognized the rhythm of her breath, and a series of images came tumbling from the darkness.
In the tree hole where Florian had returned to find the underwear intact, with only the new smell of mold creeping over the others, and a sweet nausea rising within him, until it occupied his throat entirely and felt more like pain than anything else. His body trembled and his breathing grew more erratic as she approached, and he could smell her now, and hear her clearly, and even see the shifting image of her face as if through smoke.
Lea observed Florian. His body was an atrophied thing, with a density and pallor that seemed incapable of movement, like a jagged stone covered in salt scum. He smelled very strongly of urine and sweat. She slipped a hand beneath the sheet and pressed it to his chest where she could feel his ribs beating from the inside. His eyes remained closed, this useless trembling thing, alone in the empty room. She ran her fingers along his clavicle and up his neck and over his chin and across his lips, the fur above, black and rough, and over his nose, feeling his warm breath, the thin and fragile eyelids she dared not touch, his lupine eyebrows, and finishing on the boy’s forehead, which she found brimming with the heat of life suspended. She wanted desperately for him to wake and look at her, even if he did so without any kindness in his eyes. Lea decided that she would remain in this room, next to Florian’s body, until bedtime came, and perhaps beyond, no matter what Marc or the old man did to her.
She leaned forward and pressed her lips to Florian’s, allowing them to stay there, his fermented breath mingling with hers, his nose on her eyelid, cheek to cheek, and again with her lips on his, then touching the different parts of Florian’s face. When she pulled back to look at the boy Lea noticed a bump in the covers, where something pressed up, which she dared not touch, fearing she might have caused this new deformation, a form of sickness growing from the boy, feeding on Florian, taking not just his piss but also his blood and sweat, sucking them through the hose and storing them in the milk jug. Eventually Florian would be entirely liquid, and only an empty bed would remain for Lea to kiss. She could not allow it. Lea lifted the sheet and untied the string and removed the hose, which slithered into the milk jug and settled there wet. She looked again where the bump had been, but saw only the boy’s limp prick. She had saved Florian.
That evening Christophe fed the children beetroot and cauliflower, sautéed, salted and peppered. He boiled lentils but forgot the seasoning, and the children left them in small piles on the side of their plates until he threatened them and they ate. The old man gathered their dishes and washed them in the sink, noticing red-brown streaks in the running water, and scratches on Marc’s face, and bruises around Rodolphe’s neck, and Lea’s black eye. I cannot run after the children and police them, he thought. I cannot catalogue their wrongs.
Once the children were in bed, Christophe retired to his bedroom. He closed his eyes but found himself unable to sleep. Usually the process was simple. The eyes closed. There was a brief period of drifting. One or two minutes at most. Then he was asleep. But not tonight.
The moon was full and the sky was clear, and through the skylight came a white glow, illuminating the children’s faces as they slept. Only Florian lay awake looking at the moon, the feeling of Lea’s lips still fresh, and his limbs trembling with nervous energy. He wanted nothing more than to fling himself through a field or climb a tree. Lea had awoken in him the poison of movement and it was driving him mad. He struggled to keep his body still. Safe. Even the moon screamed out until his head was full of noises, wild noises surrounding him, in the mattress, the pillow, and snakes in the milk jug, snakes from the girl’s mouth reaching to kiss him with their black lips.
Then across the moon shot a black shape, and the boy’s eyes were wide, watching the bat fly from beam to beam, the creature chittering to Florian, who could no longer contain himself, and he sat upright, hands on the mattress, gripping the mattress, legs flung out behind him, until he was on all fours, then pushing with his hind legs to lunge at the bat, to join the bat in its blackness, jumping from bed to bed and stepping on the children’s bodies until they woke in a stupor, unable to understand what was happening, even Marc confused, thinking finally the men had returned, and Florian slipping and falling, his thin muscles straining, rising again to jump on the beds, and the bat swooping from beam to beam, terrified, and Florian shrieking and jumping. Christophe coming up the stairs with a belt in his right hand, lit only by the moon, and swinging the belt at the child’s legs, to stop this madness, but hitting instead the terrified children, sheets pulled to their chins or over their heads, until they began screaming also, and Florian continued flinging himself from bed to bed, filled with joy and fear, then leaping to the ground, away from the old man, who continued swinging blindly, the boy tumbling down the stairs and through the front door and out into the cold wet air, cutting his hands and feet on the sharp stones, but paying no attention to his pain, no snakes whatsoever, just the smell of the night filling his head with old pleasures, running through the fields and forests, branches whipping his naked body, brambles catching on his arms and legs and marking the flesh, gnashing his teeth and chewing whatever he could, until he had poured everything back into the wilderness, and the wilderness had returned it all, and Florian felt alive, slowing, crawling, limping along, finally finding a soft place among the moss, curling to sleep, peaceful body illuminated by the moon, with the black tattoo of leaf shadow marking his bare flesh.
16.
When Florian awoke into a grey and lifeless day, he could barely remember the night previous. It could have been a fever dream were it not for the many lacerations and bits of thorn still embedded in his skin. Even more incomprehensible to the boy: the profound discomfort he felt lying in the damp leaves and the strength of his yearning for the warmth and comfort of his sickbed.
When the boy attempted to rise, his pain manifested fully. Stiff calves, neck barely able to support his head, thighs cramping unless he locked his knees, even the inside of his feet burned in striations along each toe and into the arches. The boy was a shamble of atrophied muscles trying to keep him afoot. He clung to the trunk of an elm. Slowly he began rubbing himself against the tree bark, forcing his limbs alive, turning his pain into faint warmth, until the cramps receded and his joints loosened and the boy was able to stand without holding the tree, albeit trembling greatly.