TE23 Double Feature

The Forests

Sandrine Collette

If he pushed her, would she fall to one side, because she’d been dead for days, as if she’d been waiting for him, wedged in the armchair opposite the door to be sure to see him if he came?

Of course he knew.

He’d promised himself not to look at her anymore, not to speak to her. Something inside him, too young and too fragile—something had never gotten over her rejection. She had sworn to be a recluse, lost behind the thick walls of a cold abbey. Life had gotten the better of her childhood convictions. She’d forgotten. She’d married young. They both worked the land. Two years earlier, she’d had a son. She was just a liar. Corentin didn’t want to say her name. But that was before.

Since he never came.

I’m here, he said.

His voice catching.

He shoved her, gently.

She didn’t fall.

*

Since then, there’d been the thing, everything was dead.

Corentin.

And she was there.

He turned around, slowly, hearing her call to him. He didn’t recognize her at first, her face, her figure—but her voice. 72

Standing in the door.

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