TE23 Double Feature

The Forests

Sandrine Collette

him. No, he said, no. He shook his arms, his shoulders, to make it fall. But the hope was still there, all the same.

to an end.

And he reckoned that his legs couldn’t go any further. He reckoned they needed to rest. And then: he’d see, afterwards.

Because he would get there eventually.

And Corentin could have gone on by, could have skipped the little turn-off. Could have gone on down the road indefinitely. Then there wouldn’t have been any bitterness, any sorrow. He would never have known what had happened, down there. But there wouldn’t be any more goal, either. No more quest, nothing more to expect. He would go on—where? What for?

If there was anyone left alive in the Forests— down there, he’d have his answer.

He caught his breath.

In the last little valley, where the road wound down, a sinuous trail, and there was nothing more after the two bends—in the last little valley, he began humming, very softly, to give himself courage.

Simply go on.

* * *

It didn’t make any sense.

And what he found at last: at the end of the valley, in the hole where he’d grown up, there was the house.

In any case, whether he got there or didn’t get there. In any case, the goal would come 68

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