TE23 Double Feature

The Forests

Sandrine Collette

Then Corentin leapt up, grabbed the rifle, and scrambled down the staircase.

steps, wheezing and holding a big basin half filled with water. He took it from her.

*

Augustine.

Mathilde was standing stock still in the middle of the room, paralyzed, her fists clenched against her body. She was looking into the distance—deep inside. Her lips were trembling, her hands were red with blood. There was blood all the way to the floor. The tiles shining scarlet. Corentin’s voice caught in his throat. Then he shouted her name. Not Mathilde: Augustine, he couldn’t see her.

I saw it.

There was her voice, suddenly. Rasping, aged, fearful—her voice had come back. He recognized it. Augustine was alive. Corentin’s heart suddenly began to beat again, palpitations unleashed by fear, the fear that perhaps Mathilde—Mathilde who had lost everything, and whose mind seemed to falter at times— Augustine was alive. But Corentin didn’t get it at first, didn’t realize—would realize later on. In his panic, he was still touching the old woman, looking for a wound.

No, no, what have you done.

He ran into the kitchen.

Augustine was there, he nearly knocked her over. She was walking toward him, taking tiny 90

Augustine, the blood.

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