Chapter Fifty-One

December 11th 1895: Christine

I heard what Meg was saying, but it didn't make any sense to me.

"She's not gone," I told her without thinking. "How could she have gone? She can't even walk properly yet. At least not without someone helping her. And why should she walk around in the middle of the night?"

I knew I was talking more than usual, but for some reason, I was unable to stop myself.

"She must be tired," I went on. "Surely she played with Michel all evening and only wants to lie in her bed and have sweet dreams now. My little Clarille, so tired..."

Meg seized me by the shoulders and held me in a firm grip.

"Christine, listen to me," she said seriously. "Clarille has not left out of her own accord, of course she hasn't. Someone must have abducted her."

"Abducted?" I repeated faintly.

At once, the image of a dark figure leaning over my little girl's bed appeared in my head, growing larger and larger.

"No," I groaned. "No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!"

Slowly, Meg's face began to spin before my eyes. Faster and faster it spun as her hands slipped from my shoulders. Black and white dots danced around her, making me even dizzier. I felt very cold. Then everything went black, and I saw and heard no more.

...

"Poor thing..."

"...fainted... just like that..."

"Yes, but..."

"...don't blame her... the circumstances..."

Voices growing louder and softer and louder again. Two voices. Two voices I knew. Two female voices I knew.

My head throbbed painfully. Apparently my mind was only capable of processing a very limited number of information before complaining loudly.

What had happened? Where was I? And who else was there?

"I think she's coming round at last," one of the voices remarked, somewhere close to me. "Christine? Christine!"

Something cold brushed against my forehead. Shuddering, I saw a person I knew. Meg was there, a sponge and a small bowl in her hands. Her face was on the same level as mine, but facing sideways. How peculiar...

It was only then that I realised I was lying on my side. I felt soft fabric under the right side of my face. I tried to sit up, but at once, the world started spinning again.

"Try not to move, Christine," Meg advised me. "The less you move, the sooner you'll feel better."

"What... what has happened?" I asked. My voice sounded strangely faint and hoarse.

"You fainted, my dear," the second voice I had heard before informed me.

A moment later, another face appeared next to Meg's. It was a kind face with round cheeks, framed by grey hair.

"Mme.Marandette," I whispered. "What are you doing here?"

"I heard your voice in the corridor," she replied. "It sounded frightened. I came straight away, just in time to help your friend."

"Did I wake up the children as well?" I asked. Something inside me stirred at the mentioning of children, but I didn't know what it was.

Meg shook her head.

"I've just checked," she told me. "They're still fast asleep. Don't worry about them. They're fine."

They both smiled at me, but it didn't make me feel better. On the contrary, the feeling of foreboding increased. Something was lurking just out of reach of my conscious.

"Do you remember what I told you before you fainted?" Meg asked cautiously. She sounded as if she knew what was lurking in my head, ready to attack me. How could she know it when I didn't?

I tried to think about the answer to her question, only to find that it made my head ache even more. The part right at the top of my head hurt most. I felt it gingerly and discovered a large lump.

"You stumbled backwards and hit your head on the bottommost step," Meg explained, watching me closely. "I'm sorry. I tried to, but I couldn't catch you in time to prevent it. It all happened too quickly. One moment I was talking, and the next..." Her voice trailed off.

"It doesn't matter," I muttered automatically. There were far more pressing matters on my mind at the moment.

I was still trying to remember what it was that she had told me, even if it made my head ache. I had a feeling that it was something important, something worth remembering. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to think with all my might. Yet all I found was a blur of images, with some snatches of conversation.

And then it all stopped. One image pushed itself to the front of my mind, and I heard only one sentence: Clarille... She's gone!

I gasped, feeling as though my whole body had turned to ice. Still I was trembling from head to foot. This was far worse than the pain in my head had ever been.

"Oh no," I heard Meg say. "No, no, no, Christine, stay with me... you mustn't faint again..."

Focusing on the soothing voice only, I forced down the fit of blind panic that had threatened to engulf me. In an attempt to calm down, I swallowed hard, but the only thing I achieved was that I noticed how very dry my throat was.

"Could I have something to drink?" I asked, glad about the innocent subject.

"Of course, my dear," Mme.Marandette replied instantly.

I heard the tinkle of china. Looking over to her, I saw her pour tea from her favourite tea pot into a small cup. She took the sponge and the bowl of water out of Meg's hands, so that my friend could help me sit up. With a vague sense of relief, I noticed that the world was quite stationary again.

Meg seized the tea cup and helped me drink. The liquid was hot and so sweet that I shuddered.

"It has to be that sweet," Mme.Marandette explained quietly, interpreting the expression on my face correctly. "It helps against the shock."

Now we were back on the subject. The tea didn't make me feel much better than before, but I didn't point it out to the kind woman. I didn't want to hurt her feelings. Instead, I asked Meg,

"What has happened to Clarille? Can you tell me?"

"I can try," she answered, looking doubtful.

I could tell that she was afraid of upsetting me further. I gave her an encouraging nod.

"I need to know," I insisted.

"All right," she agreed, with a little sigh. "Well, Jean and I drove straight home after we had brought you and the children here. By the time we arrived, Marielle was in a state of panic, shouting that Clarille was gone. She had looked everywhere, but she hadn't been able to find the little one."

"How could Clarille have just left?" I asked. "Didn't Marielle take proper care of her? Did she fall asleep?"

"No, she didn't," Meg replied. "She insists that she was awake all the time. She left the nursery for a few minutes, though, because she had heard a noise in one of the other rooms and thought a stray cat had come in through the open window. It happened before, you know, only last week. And when she returned, Clarille's bed was empty. Only Michel was there, still asleep."

"Are you quite sure that the maid looked everywhere?" Mme.Marandette wanted to know. "Perhaps little Clarille woke up and got out of bed because she wanted to find her Maman..."

Meg shook her head.

"That's impossible," she said flatly, crushing my hope. "We searched the entire house. Jacqueline and Gabriel helped, too."

"What about the garden?" I asked. "You can't have searched all of it in the dark."

"Clarille can't have left the house all by herself," Meg said. "She couldn't have made it down the stairs, and even if she had somehow managed to do it, she is too small to reach the handle of the entrance door. No, someone must have taken her."

"But who?" Mme.Marandette mused aloud. "Who could have done such a cruel thing?"

"I don't know," Meg replied. "We asked ourselves the same thing, of course. There was no one near the house, no one we could have asked whether they had seen a stranger. Christine, you know the neighbourhood. At this time of night, everybody is in bed there. The streets were deserted. I have no idea who could have done it."

"One always hears about such things happening, but I'd have never thought they'd happen here," Mme.Marandette said. "Only the other day, I read an article in the newspaper about a girl who..."

She went on talking, but I couldn't bear to listen. I didn't want to hear what had happened to some poor child. I was too busy worrying about my own daughter to care about someone else's.

Who could have taken Clarille? And why had that person left Michel undisturbed? The answer came to me in an instant: That person had not been interested in Michel. They had only wanted Clarille. He had only wanted Clarille. My lips formed a single word.

"Erik..."