Odette had resigned herself; she would dream of the fire every night. At first, it was all searing light and the terrible dark oblivion of smoke and she was nothing between the two, lost in the seam. She lay on a pallet for weeks, the dressings being changed on her burned leg, her broken arm secured to her chest, the familiar, disgusting scent of her singed hair inescapable and she drifted from waking into sleep like a dust mote. The fire burned Le Peletier to ash every time her eyes closed, the sound of the inferno like a wolf's howl, the sea's hungry crash to devour the shore.
Months passed and she learned to use her stick, strengthened her weak arm with menial tasks, exhausting herself so that she would be able to overcome the fear of the nightmares that threatened to keep her miserably yawning through the smallest hours of the morning. She began to dream of the pain of the beam that crushed her leg, that had pinned her and made her a witness to the destruction. She had clawed at it like a beast and had broken every nail on her hands to no avail. She choked on her tears and her lips bitten bloody. She had not thought her body could ever have flown through the air, nor that she had once worn a skirt of the palest blue tulle with a satin sash.
Years passed and she dreamt and Félicie appeared in the street, cajoled her way home. She taught her in the small courtyard and she did not wince when the girl rang the bell. She began to see her when she slept, in the place of Marie-Laure or Héloise, running through the halls with her red hair a flame that rose from her white face, that made her open her mouth in a wordless scream. She saw the girl's body just too far away to reach, limp, soot making her lashes dark and her pursed lips. They said a true mother could always rescue her child and it was another failure for Odette, that Félicie was not hers and could not be saved until the dawn broke.
A decade and she wept in her sleep, crying out for Louis who appeared in doorways and thresholds, perfectly groomed, his face mildly dismayed by her pleading, desperate shrieks. She struggled under the weight of the masonry that had wanted to become her coffin, her own burned flesh a shroud for her yearning soul and called for him, Mérante, Monsieur when he would not turn his head for Louis!
"Mathilde! Bois de l'eau," she heard, the words defining the cup that was held to her lips as much as the smooth rim, the sweet cold relief of the water that spilled down her chin. Louis had learned that was all he should say to wake her; he used the name she had signed on the marriage license, not the one he'd first known, the ballerina's. She had been Mathilde first and at night, she was again, when he drew her back from the fire's infinite horror with only his voice saying her name, the names of all the rivers in France, la Seine, la Loire, Garonne, Dordogne, Meuse, Sélune, Blavet, Charente, all he could remember, all the water that she had longed for. He did not touch her until she turned to him and laid her face against his bare chest, her cheeks wet with tears, and then he traced the line of her healed arm where it rested like a wing. It was dark then, without a candle lit, and it was light with the moon's cool glow. She heard only his heart beating and she slept without dreaming.