TE23 Double Feature

The Forests

Sandrine Collette

I saw it.

not once did Mathilde reply.

She waved him away.

He would knock, timidly, four light little taps on the delicate wood, not to wake her if she was asleep. She slept all the time. Or pretended to. In any case, she didn’t respond, didn’t show her face. Only Augustine could go in.

* * *

This too, the thing had killed.

Mathilde didn’t know, before.

No one knew. The thing itself had taken some time, because the embryo was well hidden. But the thing had eventually gotten the better of her, and from deep inside Mathilde’s belly, the embryo had let go.

Please.

Mathilde didn’t hear.

Augustine went by, her expression grave. She pushed Corentin out of the way.

So much blood, Corentin would think, afterwards.

This is no place for a man.

He would stand there just before the screens Augustine had put up in the room downstairs for some privacy. He wouldn’t dare go beyond them. He would call out in a quiet voice and 92

Man.

Like a curse.

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