The night in Anje's cabin was long and noisy. Outside, the forest was alive, and it didn't seem happy at all to have us around. I could hear furtive rustling just beyond the door, the low, guttural growl of a beast that sounded like no wolf I'd ever heard, and once, a high-pitched, piercing sound that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
We were camping as best we could in the single room. Margot had taken position near the door, her stilettos within reach, refusing to sleep. I was curled up near the hearth, pretending to rest, but every creak made me jump. Anje's words swirled in my head like a whirlwind: "Laurent will stop you... No one returns alive from that hill." Fantastic. We'd gone from one trap in a forge to a trap in an entire valley.
The most unnerving thing? Anje. She slept like a rock on her little bed of pelts, immersed in such deep sleep that her breathing occasionally turned into light, peaceful snoring. The monsters outside could knock all they wanted—she didn't care. Either she knew they couldn't get in, or she simply didn't consider them a threat. I didn't know which option was more terrifying.
Finally, the grayish light of dawn began filtering through the cracks, chasing away the shadows and the noises. But not the feeling of being trapped.
Frustration was a bitter taste in my mouth. I found Margot outside the cabin, testing the weight of her stilettos. She was thinking. And when Margot thought that way, it usually meant she was about to propose something crazy.
"Last night I called you insane," she began, without looking at me. Her tone was low, almost reluctant. "I was right. It's a crazy idea."
"I'm glad we agree," I said, relieved. "For a moment I thought you actually wanted to go serenade some killer trees."
She finally turned, and in her eyes was the same frustration I felt. "But you're right too. Every day we spend here, the hope of finding Nicolas, Sophie... even old Jean-Pierre... fades." She gripped the hilt of her stiletto tighter. "And Guillaume... we let him die. We can't let it have been for nothing."
"So what do you propose?" I asked, already knowing the answer. "Do we go back to your original plan of ghost hunting?"
"I don't like it," she admitted, her voice a frustrated growl. "I hate everything about this situation. I hate magic, I hate monsters, and I hate old women who talk to trees." She shot a glance at the cabin, where Anje was preparing an herbal tea. "But she said there's a way. And if it's the only way to get to that damned manor, then we have to try."
"Patience isn't surrender, kids. It's preparation."
Anje's calm voice made us jump. She'd appeared silently, as always, carrying two bowls of thick soup. "Your friend is right, Victor. You can't stay here forever. But charging in now would be foolish."
Anje sat on a smooth root, handing us the bowls. The soup was hot and tasted of mushrooms and earth. "The forest rejected you because it sensed you as a threat. Anger, fear, haste. You entered here as hunters."
"And what should we do?" asked Margot, accepting the bowl with a reluctant nod.
"No!" answered Anje. "You must enter as part of the forest itself." She turned to me, her oak-brown eyes seeming to read inside me. "Your power is a flame, boy. Loud and aggressive. You need to learn to listen, not just to shout."
Without giving me time to protest, she led us to a small clearing where sunlight managed to filter through the high branches. "Sit," she ordered me. "And pull out that noisy stone of yours."
I sighed but obeyed. I extracted the medallion from its leather prison. Its familiar warmth pulsed in my palm.
"Now listen," Anje said. "Not with your ears. Not with your eyes. Listen with that. Search for the memories of the earth. Search for the life that was there before the wound."
I closed my eyes. At first, only chaos. The rustling of leaves, the buzzing of an insect, the beating of my own heart. It was all too loud. Then, guided by her calm voice, I tried to go deeper. I felt the medallion's warmth respond, opening up. And then I perceived it. An echo. A confused image of massacre, smoke and screams.
"I feel... pain," I gasped, my head spinning.
"Of course, this land is full of pain," Anje said. "But there's not only that. Search again. Search for the life that was there."
I concentrated again, pushing beyond the wave of suffering. And I found it. A melody. Faint, almost imperceptible. A girl's voice singing a joyful song, a song about sun and vineyards.
I snapped my eyes open. "Sophie," I whispered. "The singer. I heard her. But... it wasn't an echo of pain. It was... joy."
Margot stared at me, confused. Anje, however, nodded slowly, a flash of understanding in her eyes. "Exactly. The spirit haunting that manor isn't made only of anger. It's also made of beauty. A broken beauty."
"This doesn't make sense," I said. "If it were Laurent's vengeful spirit, why would I feel Sophie's joy?"
Anje looked at me, and I understood she'd guided me to that conclusion on purpose.
"Perhaps because not everything is as it seems," she said enigmatically. Seeing our frustration, she had an idea.
"Your power is still raw, Victor, but it's strong. You've disturbed the balance of this place. Perhaps you're also the solution."
She led us to a small cave hidden behind a waterfall, a veil of water concealing a secret world. At the center, there was a small natural altar of rock, covered with ancient carvings and luminous moss.
"To ask the forest to let you pass, you must offer it something in return. An act of creation," she explained. She turned to Margot, handing her one of her stilettos.
"Your talent isn't in killing, girl. It's in movement. In discipline. Show the forest your dance."
Then she turned to me. She handed me a piece of dry wood and my knife.
"The forest wants to see if you're here to destroy or to create," she said, her voice echoing in the damp cave. "Show it your soul!"
I can't say how much time we spent in that damp cave. Time, in there, seemed to follow different rules, flowing more slowly. I only remember fragments, like in a feverish dream: the absolute concentration on Margot's face as she moved, her stilettos no longer weapons but brushes painting silent shapes in the air. The gentle warmth of my medallion, a living pulse in my hand as the knife danced on the wood, revealing a shape that was already there, hidden.
When we emerged, the world had changed.
Or perhaps we had changed.
The forest was silent. Terribly silent. The hostile wind had calmed, the threatening rustle of leaves had vanished. Even the birds seemed to have stopped singing. It wasn't a natural peace. It was the charged, waiting quiet of an arena before the games begin.
"Do you think it worked?" Margot whispered beside me, her voice seeming like sacrilege in that unnatural silence.
"I don't know," I replied. "But at least there are no boars trying to gore us. I'm taking that as a yes."
Anje had pointed us in the direction but hadn't accompanied us. "This is your path now!" she'd said. "The forest will watch you."
We walked for what felt like an eternity, following a barely visible path that wound between ancient, twisted trunks. The air grew colder, heavier, laden with a smell of wet ash and a pain so ancient it seemed part of the earth itself. I felt my medallion, even inside its pouch, becoming cold as ice. I was walking toward an immense concentration of suffering, and each step was agony.
Then, through an arch of black branches, we saw them.
The ruins of the manor.
They were a skeleton. Fire-blackened walls stood against the gray sky like the ribs of a carcass. The windows were empty sockets staring at nothing. Everything was wrapped in a tangle of thorns thick as human arms, a second skin of spikes that seemed to hold the stones together and, at the same time, crush them.
We stopped at the edge of the clearing surrounding the ruins, hidden among the trees. The silence here was even deeper, almost absolute.
That's when a figure moved.
At the edge of the clearing, near a collapsed wing of the manor, there was a bear. But the word "bear" was reductive, almost a lie. It was enormous, larger than any beast I'd ever seen, its fur an unnatural black, strangely patched with white, like frost or ash. It moved slowly, tearing up tufts of grass with terrifying nonchalance.
"For all the saints..." Margot hissed.
But the worst thing wasn't the size. It was the eyes. When it raised its head, sniffing the air, I saw its eyes gleaming in the shadows. They weren't the eyes of a beast. They were a pale, milky blue, full of a cold and melancholic intelligence.
The bear slowly rose on its hind legs, a black and ashen giant that seemed to defy the sky. Its bulk was frightening, a wall of muscle and fur, but it didn't charge us.
We held our breath, expecting a roar that would shake the forest.
Instead, it opened its mouth.
And from that bestial throat came a sound that didn't belong to this world. A single, perfect, and heartbreaking cello chord. Long, distorted, a lament of such deep and terrible beauty that it brought tears to my eyes.
Its milky eyes fixed on ours. And then, with a low growl that was pure territorial fury, it began to charge.