During the night, Louie tosses and turns. A strange restlessness prevents him from sleeping, a restlessness that followed the relief of knowing they are safe—for a few days, a few hours, just so long as there is some respite. But in spite of himself he wonders which one of the three of them is bringing them bad luck, causing the days to go by with neither sweetness nor light, never leaving them the time to regain hope between two tragedies, or even catch their breath, just a little gasp, an intake that is too short and too fearful.
Because there is an evil spell on them, on them or on one of them—which one? And how long before their mere presence will make Adele’s house sink to the bottom of the sea?
The house will not capsize.
Because of Perrine and her blind eye—there used to be an old woman in the village who, whenever she saw her go by, would cry out and cross herself: The eye of the devil! It used to make them laugh. But now?
No, no.
Noah, who forgot to grow up?
The house is strong, resisting the onslaught of the waves, the way you cling to a rock, it’s the world around that’s moving, not the house, the house is standing, the house doesn’t tremble.
Or he himself, Louie, with his game leg.
The waves smashing to bits against the walls.
Or all three of them together, because that’s a heap of deformities if you put them side by side, it’s enough to make you laugh, if it weren’t so sad, you’d hardly notice, maybe someday someone would say, yes, there’s something weird about those three, nature or fate needn’t have bothered—isn’t that the reason why they were left behind on the island and not the others, not Liam or Matteo, not Emily or Sidonie, not Lotte or Marion, just those three, the gimp, the dwarf, and the one-eyed wonder?
Three runty little pigs.
I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.
-
The next morning Adele and Lucette open their shutters onto a sea of glass. The children slept on mattresses on the floor, exhausted. It rained during the night, and the wind had been gusting, Adele tells them, but the children didn’t see or hear a thing, not even the lightning that usually wakes them with a start. Louie, who thought he’d been awake from nightfall to dawn, can’t get over it, and yet, the puddles of water on the terrace and the steam here and there on the windows and walls indicate the passage of the storm. Louie runs his palm over the sea: so smooth and silent, contemplative, the wind is calm, the sky as blue as Perrine’s eye. So he sighs, as if he had been keeping the waves at arm’s length all night long, watching the gray line of the horizon and the vanished waves.
And that next day, as Adele had predicted, beneath the poultice there was a surprise waiting: Perrine’s eye, almost normal, still a bit swollen, her eyelid torn, but clean, with a red circle below it like a strange bruise. It’s looking good, whispers the old lady, pleased. The fever has gone down, too; Perrine’s forehead is dry and warm, but still too warm for Lucette’s liking, and saying nothing she goes to fetch a second aspirin in the bathroom and hands it to Adele. Once again, Adele frowns and hesitates.
“How many left?”
“A dozen or so.”
They exchange glances and they both know that Lucette is lying, but the ailing old lady tosses the tablet into a glass of water and gives a shrug:
“Now she’ll have to drink it.”
Adele slowly cleans Perrine’s face, even though the girl cries out. Bit by bit the wounded eye blinks, flickers, finally opens not completely but halfway, sitting nearby Louie and Noah can see the blue of her iris. So Perrine gives a start and recoils suddenly, and Adele leans over, then smiles as she straightens up.
“So there you are, you can see me today, can’t you?”
Perrine nods without speaking, her lips trembling.
“I’m the one who looked after you yesterday,” says Adele. “I’m an old lady. Didn’t your brothers tell you? In a few years I’ll be a hundred. Don’t be afraid, they’re right here.” She takes Noah by the arm and stands him in front of Perrine: You see? Everyone’s here.
She changes the bandage, while Lucette hums. They share their food among the five of them, the hens’ eggs and potatoes from the children, and canned food and smoked fish from the old ladies. Hmm, exclaims Noah, this is good.
Yes, now all is well, from Perrine who has regained a bit of appetite to Louie who has left off his wariness. Until Lucette asks him the question. Louie frowns. But she was bound to ask, because the two grandmothers don’t exactly run into three children adrift on the sea every day, and Lucette is clearly the more curious one, in spite of her illness and fatigue, so there it is, she asks the question they already heard yesterday, an innocuous little question, and yet it is huge, with everything it implies:
“So what are the three of you doing on that boat all alone?”
Perrine’s eyes are bandaged again, but if she had opened them, she would no doubt have done the same thing as Noah: look at Louie. And like Noah she remains silent, waiting for her older brother to reply, and at last he murmurs:
“We’re headed toward the high ground.”
Adele looks puzzled.
“But… just the three of you?”
“Our parents left before us. We have to meet up with them.”
“And they let you go to sea all by yourselves?”
“Um, in fact… they left with the others but there was no more room for us. We were waiting for them on our island but the water was rising. So—”
Noah breaks in.
“Then there was Ades, and he wanted to steal everything we had to eat. And he drowned, and we took his boat. That’s why we have a boat.”
Adele rubs her eyes—I’m not sure I understand. They explain it again, the children, even Perrine from behind her bandage, it gets all muddled up, and it takes all the old ladies’ patience to get the story straight, patience and common sense—and after that they are silent for a long time, their fingers on their lips, eyebrows raised over their wrinkled eyes. Adele clears her throat.
“… so you’re going to the high ground?”
“Yes,” says Louie.
“And you’ve come from Levet.”
“Yes,” says Noah.
“Do you know where we are, here?”
“No,” says Perrine.
“In Tanat.”
Silence. So Adele looks at them and continues.
“That doesn’t mean anything to you.”
And as it’s not a question, they don’t answer.
“Tanat,” explains Lucette, speaking in turn, “is about ten miles from where you lived.”
Louie suddenly turns pale. He understands.
His siblings, no.
Adele looks at him. She smiles at him. She says, it doesn’t matter.
And Louie, in trembling voice, Yes, it does matter.
“What’s wrong?” says Perrine, worriedly.
Three, four, ten seconds. His sister murmurs, Louie? And Louie, almost in tears, suddenly exclaims, pale and unsteady:
“We got lost. We went backwards!”
They show him on a map. A map from a time still so recent, when there were roads and real villages, not three half-drowned houses where chickens peck looking for insects and parasites, and a despondent boy, his hands ravaged from days of rowing, is talking to two old ladies, next to a blind little girl and a tiny shrimp of a boy. And no matter how Louie peers and points to the roads the old ladies show him, the calculation always comes out the same, between Levet and Tenet there are just over ten miles, and that is how far they’ve gone in eight days, two of them with the motor, hardly more than a mile a day, Oh no, thinks Louie, we went for miles, dozens and dozens of miles, how could.