Cruelest Month

He looked down and realized he was strangling the leg, his fingers tight and white as though the blood had leached from him into the wood. After a moment’s hesitation he placed it carefully on the floor, making sure to put it on a bed of woodchips.

‘’Tis not for he the sparrow pipes,

Nor blows the bullfrog in the rill,

Ah, not for he the heron wipes,

His stately nose upon his quill.’

Odile lowered her book and gave Gilles a knowing look. Nodding a few times she closed her book and walked with great concentration back into the store. Gilles watched and wondered what she was trying to tell him. How was it he understood trees but not Odile?

He suddenly felt uneasy as though ants were crawling inside his skin. Bringing the wooden leg to his face he inhaled deeply and was transported to the forest. The tender, watchful forest. Safe. But even there his thoughts ran him to earth.

What did Odile know? Wasn’t a quill a type of pen? Was she planning to write something less abstruse about him? Was she warning him? If so, she had to be stopped.

He tapped his palm rhythmically with the exquisite wooden leg as he thought.

At his desk Armand Gamache smoothed the crumpled newspaper. Up until that moment he’d only had people read it to him and that had been shocking enough. But his heart gave a contraction as he looked at the picture. Daniel’s hand on the envelope he’d forced on him just yesterday morning. Daniel, beautiful Daniel, a big bear of a man. Couldn’t everyone see they were father and son? Were the editors deliberately blind? But Gamache knew the answer to that. Someone was blocking out their reason.

He reached for the phone and dialed Daniel.

Dr Sharon Harris pulled her car up to the kerb and was about to go into the bistro. Through its mullioned window she could see the Morrows and a few others she knew slightly. She could see the fire jumping in the grate and Gabri holding a tray of drinks and telling a story to an amused group of villagers. As she watched Olivier expertly took the tray from Gabri and delivered the drinks to another group. Gabri sat down, crossed his massive legs and continued the story. She thought she saw him take a sip from someone’s whiskey, but she wasn’t sure. She turned and looked at the village. Lights were beginning to appear and the sweet scent of log fires was in the air. The three massive pines on the village green threw long evening shadows now. She looked into the sky. More than night was closing in. She’d listened to the forecast in the car and even Environment Canada was surprised that such a mammoth system had suddenly appeared. But what did it contain? The forecasters didn’t know. Could be rain or sleet or even snow at this time of year.

Since she didn’t see Chief Inspector Gamache in the bistro Dr Harris decided to sit on the bench on the green and get some air. As she bent to sit down something beneath the bench caught her eye. She picked it up, examined it, and smiled.

Across the road Ruth Zardo’s door opened and the elderly woman came out. She stood there for a moment and Harris had the impression Ruth was talking to some invisible person. Then she clumped down the steps and at the bottom said a few more words into the air.

Finally lost it, thought Dr Harris. Fried her brain with verse and worse.

Ruth turned and did something that horrified Dr Harris, who knew the misanthrope slightly. She smiled and waved at the young doctor. Dr Harris waved back and wondered what malevolent scheme Ruth had hatched to make her so happy. Then she saw it.

As Ruth limped across the road two tiny birds formed a very small tail behind her. One was spreading its wings and flapping, the other was limping a little and falling behind. Ruth stopped and waited, then started again, more slowly.

‘Quite a family,’ said Gamache, landing in the seat beside Dr Harris.

‘Look what I found.’

Dr Harris opened her fist and there in the cradle of her palm sat a tiny egg. A robin’s egg blue, but not actually a robin’s egg. It was also green and pink in a pattern so intricate and delicate Gamache had to put on his half-moon glasses to appreciate it.

‘Where on earth did you find that?’

‘Right here, under the bench. Can you believe it? It’s wood, I think.’ She handed it to him. He brought it up to his face and stared at it until his eyes crossed.

‘Beautiful. I wonder where it came from.’

Dr Harris was shaking her head. ‘This place. How do you explain a village like Three Pines where poets take ducks for walks and art seems to fall from the skies?’

On the mention of skies both of them looked at the storm cloud, now almost halfway up the sky.

‘I wouldn’t expect many Rembrandts from that,’ said Gamache.

‘No. More abstract than classic, I think.’

Gamache laughed. He liked Dr Harris.

‘Poor Ruth. You know she smiled at me just now.’

‘Smiled? Do you think she’s dying?’

‘No, but I think the little one is.’