That evening, after having proudly paraded in front of my companions from the farm, who could not hide their envious glances at the sight of my tattoo, I set myself to talk with Brindy. The singular day I had just spent had exhausted me, and I was still sore from the bruises left by my unpleasant encounter with Randu Lemis. However, I also understood that I could not keep putting off this moment forever. The ritual of the first mark had sharpened my resolve, as if something of Dera's impetuosity had entered me. The four of us were in the barn digesting the soup, Ucar was already in a deep, restful sleep, and he seemed to be recovering quickly from his illness. When Brindy went out for some fresh air, Robin, always sensitive to the needs of others, suggested that he could take care of the patient in case I too wanted to go for a walk. I still look back nostalgically to that time when, at only eight years old, our fledgling attempts to understand and take care of each other were already far better than those of many adults.

I found Brindy sitting on the steps of the farmhouse. She was becoming more and more isolated from us when evening came. Recently, the widow sometimes accepted her company and help in spinning wool. That evening, a thick fog overflowed the river and engulfed the valley at the bottom of which the road from Brown-Horn meandered. My heart was in my shoes at the sadness of the mist, and I was severely admonished inside. Blinded by my own discomfort, I had not been able to measure all the pain I had caused to Brindy. Without a sound I sneaked up to her and settled down beside her on the thick boards. We remained in silence, our nostrils filled with the smell of resin and herbal tea that was typical of the thatched cottage terrace. The darkness finally engulfed us completely.

In the house behind us, the widow smothered her lantern. The awning was plunged into darkness. It was only then, hidden by the night, that I could finally muster up enough courage to speak to her:

"Say Brindy, are you mad at me?"

The answer came immediately, not as cold as I had feared, but I also knew that she had not turned to me to answer. "Yes," she said in a small voice, "yes, I' m mad at you." I didn't expect her to be so forthright. After some time, Brindy broke the uncomfortable silence in which I had walled myself:

"Why did you steal?"

"I don't know."

I had responded promptly, and I had lied. There was a quick rustle of skirts and I guessed that Brindy was facing me in the night. Her low but virulent voice poured over me like burning oil, tinged with mortified anger. "You brought shame on me, Fyss," she whispered vehemently. "You are the clever one. You're the smartest of us all and you went out to steal but you don't even know why? I've never been so ashamed in all my life. And if they had cut off your hand, what would've become of us ? Afterwards, Ucar got sick. Robin and I took care of him almost alone. You abandoned us, Fyss, that's it. You put me to shame and then you abandoned us for... for tattoos and the killer's knife."

The flow broke towards the end, but I could not discern whether it was tears or anger. It sounded like a woman's voice, not a child's, and as her words stopped I felt their cleaver chop my insides. I couldn't say anything back to her, even though I'd had this discussion a thousand times in my head, I had never considered that in the mind of Brindy things could take this form. I suddenly realized how disappointed I had been to her. I stammered, trying to find the words, something to soothe her, but in a dry tone she cut off my uncertain efforts:

"Leave me alone."

I stood up at once, troubled and unsettled, to stammer again as an icy spike pierced my heart. "Leave me alone, Fyss," insisted Brindy, raising her voice slightly. I was full of confused feelings. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Brindy had to tell me that she understood, that it was just a terrible misunderstanding, before she put her soft head on my shoulder so that everything would return to normal. I went down the steps one by one, and I was alone in the dark courtyard. Dazed, I stood there for a few moments. The world vibrated around me, pulsating with indistinguishable contours. I searched for a few more words, then, horrified by all those I could not find, I fled.

The night was black as it rarely happens: no moon, a low and gray sky, and the mist that was flowing all around me. I sank into darkness without thinking of anything but my pain. I ran breathlessly, without any particular destination, nor any intention other than to avoid the obstacles that presented themselves on my path. Shapes rose out of the darkness before being swallowed again, as if swallowed by carnivorous spectres. All around me, the limbs were loosening into long, opaque, moist shreds. I don't know how long I ran like this. I must have crossed the road, but I didn't remember. Breathless, hurting legs and a pounding heart, I finally stopped in front of the emaciated silhouette of a struck down elm tree. I was filled with anguish and imagined I had lost Brindy forever. Everything was too mixed up in my head, everything was moving apart between the exhaustion of the tattoo, the dead man, and the abandonment.

The whole universe seemed to bend over me to tear me to pieces. To flood each of my flaws with its dark juice. I leaned against the tree and cried loudly all the tears of my body.

Absorbed by my grief, I was only aware of an overwhelming loneliness, but the outside world remembered me. Someone grabbed me vigorously by the shoulders. Suddenly torn away from my laments, I took the measure of my stupidity. I knew that local children were disappearing and on a whim I had ventured out alone, in the middle of the night, to throw myself straight into the lion's den. My grief was immediately replaced by a wave of feverish terror and I struggled, screaming with all my strength, in the firm certainty that I was going to die.

I finally became aware that, through the racket and blows I was sending on my enemy's body, someone was calling me.

"Kid! Fyss! Stop! Fyss, stop! It's Sesh! It's Sesh!" And it was Sesh, who held me at arm's length as best he could, while I, with my little fists, tried to kill him. The second shock was almost as brutal as the first. I softened as quickly as I had tightened up, as elastic as if my spine had been ripped out. I started sobbing again, more out of nervousness than out of pain.

Sesh brought me to the foot of the tree and scraped a flint and swore until he managed to light his lantern. The spark gushed through the fog, so dense that, except for me, Sesh, and the twisted tree, the world around us seemed to have dissolved. In the approximate glow, and despite my eyes fogged with tears, I saw the soldier's face go through a range of emotions, anger, turmoil, worry, and then compassion. He finally leaned over me and tapped my shoulder awkwardly until my tears faded away.

In spite of the emotional storm, my mind kept on thinking, and I admit that I was not entirely reassured. I didn't fully understand what the soldier was doing outside, all alone, in the middle of the night. Moreover, even though the execution left something to be desired, no adult had ever consoled me. For me, this was the exclusive domain of my companions on the farm. There was also the skeletal tree, the fatigue and the surreal fog. All of these things put together made for a suspicious scene, fueled by the constant warnings about Sesh from my friends. Eventually a horrible doubt came over me. What if the others had been right about him?

What if the disappearances from the Basin were the work of the child killer? Sesh was much stronger than I was, and I was so exhausted that I knew I could never escape him. Between sobs and dark thoughts, I yawned.

The overwhelming exhaustion of the day caught up with me suddenly. In spite of my doubts, the tiredness knocked me down like the woodcutter knocks down the bush. Sesh tapped me awkwardly again, and then he lifted me off the ground. His cloak was rough but warm. My last memory, before my eyes closed for good, was of the soldier's breathing and the regular sonds of his steps.

I fell asleep so quickly that, even if Sesh had turned into a Kutta's anthropophagous spider at that moment, it wouldn't have made any difference at all.

I dreamed of Brindy and the dead man. I was a sailor, a smuggler and a tattoo artist, my bone needle snapped at each swirl of the Brown, on which my boat was dancing. The river swayed so much that my tattoo instrument would clumsily sink into the brown flesh of Brindy. I would make incoherent patterns that would never fade. Tom Minnow was floating beside the boat, his eyes white and wide open, and the voracious carps were bubbling around his guts. Brindy, he told me, was his daughter, and he wanted to marry her. With each clumsy snap, his wrath against me swelled. He ended up capsizing my boat in his rage, and Brindy, disappointed by my poor tattoo skills, remained impassive.

I struggled to keep us afloat, ended up falling into the water, and sank like a stone.

I woke up suddenly, taking a deep breath of air, and found with horror that I was not in the barn of the Ronna farm. After a few moments of panicky disorientation, I managed to gather my memories of the night. I was wrapped in a warm woollen sheet on the narrow bed of Sesh's house. The fire crackled softly in the wobbly chimney. I had no idea what time it was, but from outside, the racket of the busy city reached my ears.

I was alone. I suddenly remembered my fight with Brindy, and a knot instantly formed in my stomach. My friends must have been worried about me. Brindy would still think I had abandoned them.

I got on my feet so quickly that my head turned and my stomach growled so loudly that it made me startle. A delicious smell of stew was coming out of the stewpot on the embers of the fireplace. I took a quick look around me. Sesh had taken away my cloak, which was lying on the coffee table. I took a step to retrieve it, and the door opened.

Sesh had to bow his head to get inside. He gave me a serious look and placed his cloak on the curved cast iron rod that protruded from the entrance as a coat rack. Then, as he spoke to me, he began to set the table with his two sandstone bowls, two pewter ramekins and two wooden spoons. "I have just returned from the Ronna Orphanage," he said solemnly. "I reassured the widow, and told her that everything was fine, but that for the purpose of my last investigation it would be better for you to stay with me in town for a while. Let's be clear, I leave you no choice." Sesh put the cast iron stewpot on the table with a bang and raised his voice simultaneously:

"By the frail whore's asshole, kid! What were you doing last night? Were you playing bait or what? You know how dangerous it is to go out at night these days! And all alone, too! What if you had run into someone else besides me, huh? Had you thought about that?"

I became very ashamed, because Sesh had seen me cry, but the red of my cheeks also came from anger. I had the impression that those around me had agreed that they would only reprimand me.

I pointed an accusing finger at Sesh. "You caught me by surprise," I shouted. "You too knew it was dangerous out there, so what were you doing alone last night? Were you looking for other children to abduct?" The soldier blinked at my barking and crossed his arms. I thought I could see the shadow of a smile coming from the corner of his mouth, which scared me a little, but more importantly, made me more angry. "I didn't catch you by surprise, you were screaming so loudly that you didn't hear me approaching." I ignored the mockery and shouted: "I wasn't screaming! I just wanted to be left alone!"

Sesh raised a disapproving eyebrow. "You were screaming, and now you're doing it again," he said in an authoritative voice. "Here you are in my house, and you will not speak to me in that tone. I can hear your belly from here. So I suggest you calm down quickly and use your noise box for something that will put you in a better mood. If you want to eat, you're going to have to change your tone." To accompany his words, he grabbed the ladle that protruded from the stewpot, and shook its fragrant contents into one of the bowls before staring at me with an irritated look. I suddenly began to salivate and, between anger and hunger, it was the latter that won the day. I threw myself at the stew with a wolf's appetite, and Sesh, who had walked all morning, did the same. It was a mixture of crushed wheat, tubers and salted lamb meat. Seasoned with a handful of the wild herbs that grew in abundance on the moor, it was really delicious. After a while, I looked up at Sesh with my mouth full of food and a muffled voice:

"You didn't answer my question."

Sesh raised his eyebrows and handed me a piece of bread:

"What question?"

"What were you doing outside last night?"

The soldier looked at me with a stern look on his face:

"What do you think? I was doing my job. I was watching for suspicious comings and goings between the dock and the city. And you were lucky, because with all the noise you were making, you could have gotten someone else's attention. A kidnapper, for example."

Defeated, I lowered my eyes to my bowl:

"I was sad, that's all."

"I saw. And may I know why?"

I shook my head, and resumed my meal, with my back bent and a nostalgic thought for Brindy. No matter how hard I searched, I couldn't see how to patch things up between the two of us - especially if I had to stay with Sesh - and that soon ruined my rather ferocious appetite.

I played for a few moments with what was left of the stew, then, without taking my eyes off the bowl, I risked a question:

"Why don't you have a wife?"

On the other side of the table I heard Sesh choke on a piece of bread, and then there was a long silence. I finally raised my head. The soldier wasn't looking at me. He was crumbling his bread on the table, his face closed, his faded eyes lost in the haze. "That' s one hell of a question," he finally whispered. I lowered my gaze, cursing my own stupidity.

Of course, no woman would want the children of a man like him. I forced myself to swallow a few bites, and Sesh didn't move. I felt bad for asking that silly question without thinking, and then, because I meant it and he looked so miserable, I mumbled:

"Thanks for last night, first-blade."

Sesh sadly smiled and coughed before answering:

"You're welcome, Fyss."

I think he had responded more by reflex than anything else. But then he rubbed his eyes and exhaled audibly, and I saw the colors return to his cheeks, as if my words had finally had the desired effect.

Sesh seemed to pull himself together, and dipped some bread in the stew, saying in a voice that tried hard to sound cheerful:

"Come on, finish this bowl, we have a lot of work to do."