Fading, Like the Stars

Snow kept falling, intermittently, throughout the night. There had been many signs that winter was on its way, but now it was certain, winter was there. Everything was now wrapped in white. The snow cover was not important, only about an inch thick, but that was already enough to make everything a little more complicated. It was beautiful, though. Every time, I was amazed. How could it be, that just a little bit of snow could make a place look completely different? It was much clearer, more peaceful. And I was quickly reassured about the difficulty of our journey. A little more than an hour after we had resumed our waking, that morning, we stopped.

“Are we there yet?” I asked, very much hoping that the answer would be yes, because I had had enough walking for now, and the cold might not seem to affect the two others very much, but it was definitely getting a bit uncomfortable for me. And by uncomfortable, I meant that it was a nightmare, of course. Hiding somewhere until the weather was more clement was certainly the better option.

“Just about,” Rufus replied.

I looked around, hoping to see where we were heading: house, building… shack… anything. But our surroundings seemed deserted of all human presence. The path we were on was so wild that it was almost certain that very few knew of its existence. Nature had truly claimed its right on everything around us, because there were trees and high grass covered in frost and snow. There was the path that was barely practicable. There were bushes with thorns, large spots empty of anything but snow. But there was no sign that a human hand had ever touched this part of the country. But, as Rufus seemed to think that the place where we had arrived was important in some way, I began to look closer. And then I started to see some sort of pattern forming.

Two each side of the small path that we were on, there were trees. But those trees were a little too perfectly aligned for it to be natural. They had grown wild and their branches intertwined and entangled, like they lacked space to fully develop properly, but there was something that, after a second, more attentive look, made them look like they had been planted there. A long, long time ago. And the grassy bits… they were a bit too geometrical, placed almost symmetrically between the trees. And those rocky bits… at second glance, there was something vaguely shaped about them. The bushes… they sort of looked like very overgrown hedges. There was still a pattern visible, at places. Sometimes, they looked like they formed something like small cases. And that pond, over there, in the distance, that was so far that it was only visible because the light of the sun was reflected on its iced surface… it seemed a little too circular to be natural.

“Wait a minute,” I muttered to myself. All of this, it seemed that it had been carved out by men, before being given back to nature. “Are we… are we in a park?”

“No,” Rufus replied thoughtfully. “It is… was a private garden.”

I looked at him doubtfully. “A garden? This size? You must be wrong.”

But he shook his head, and next to me, Daniel shook his head too.

“No,” Rufus said in a quiet voice. “It was a garden. All the way from where we came, to that point over there.”
I looked at the point that he was indicating. There seemed to me that there was, under the snow, nothing but a small hill and a bit of rocks and dust.

“All the way to that hill, over there?”

“It’s not a hill,” Rufus corrected me.

“What is it, then?”

“Ruins.”

“Oh.”

I looked around again, in silence. Ruins of a building, far in the distance, and the vague remnants of what had once been a garden. But still there were no signs of human presence. Nowhere. I looked around to see where it could possibly be that we were heading. It was supposed to be close by. But there was nothing to be seen but the wilderness and the snow. I wasn’t sure what to think of it. There had been this whole journey, to get us here. And here there was nothing to see, remains of something that was long gone.

“Where is it, exactly?” I asked, failing to hide my impatience. The cold of the temperatures was starting to mirror in my behavior, although it wasn’t done on purpose. But I longed for a rest, and warmth. And I wanted to understand, because was getting less and less funny each day.

“Just beyond what you mistook for a hill,” Rufus answered patiently, not letting my own impatience get to him.

“We’re nearly there,” Daniel reassured. More than Rufus, he seemed to sense and sympathize with my restlessness.

“Well, let’s go then,” I grumbled. The sooner we would get there, the better. Snow and frost were making everything slippery, complicating our journey even more.

Rufus sighed, casting a quick glance around. “But it’s beautiful with the snow,” he said regretfully.

I understood what he meant. And honestly I appreciated the sight. But I also thought about my companions, whom, despite the beauty of the nature that lay around us, needed a rest very badly. And so did I, just as much as them. We all did. Trudging through the snow and wild nature proved to be even more difficult than we had anticipated. There were slips, several, a few falls too. A little less than half an hour was necessary to reach the ruins, because at the end we had to walk so carefully.

Reaching the ruins made me stop. It was nothing like what I had imagined it to be like, from the distance. I had thought it to be just a couple of old stones assembled there, and in the distance the snow was what made it look like some sort of hill. It was, in reality, one of the largest buildings I had ever had the chance to see. It was not high. Only a ground floor subsisted, but its surface on the ground was more extended than anything I had ever had the chance to see.

“What was it?” I asked, unable to tear my gaze away from the remains of the building. The area it covered suggested a factory, but what remained of the walls made it hard to believe that this was it. The stones used were rich, solid ones. There had been many windows, too, though not much remained of it. And the garden all around didn’t match the image of a factory. The size, however, did not fit with the idea of a house.

None of my companions could provide an answer to my question, and I stared at the ruins, increasingly intrigued. I wanted to see what it was like inside, to have an idea of just how much space there was in there, and what it could have been used as. But unfortunately there was no time for that. No to mention that the walls looked about to fall, and that I would never have dared to actually go in there.

So we walked past the ruins, with no more than one regretful glance on my behalf, and yes, with about a hundred unanswered questions in my head.

The place where we were supposedly awaited had been hidden by the large amount of ruins that I had first mistaken for a small hill, and that was why I had failed to see it at first. And even once the ruins were behind us, it wasn’t easy to spot. It was small. Tiny, even. It was surrounded by trees that were numerous and high enough to almost hide it from human sight. But most of all, it didn’t look much like a house at all. At the mention of the word library, I had imagined something rather imposing, a building that would have been large enough to house a collection of books, a place where at least a dozen people could have lived easily. I wasn’t sure what I had expected exactly, but I was sure that it hadn’t been what I was seeing.

The house, if something that small could still be called a house, could not consist of more than two rooms. There was no more than one ground floor, and the whole thing didn’t look bigger than our caravans. I doubted that anything would fit in there. I could not even see the three of us fitting in there. The state of it had nothing engaging either. Of course, compared to the ruins that we had just left behind us, it looked rather good. But I still wouldn’t have bet my life on the fact that it wasn’t going to crumble down the minute someone tried to open that door.

“Are you sure,” I asked, looking at Rufus and at Daniel in turn, “that this is the place where we need to be?”

I clearly doubted it. Maybe we’d gotten lost somewhere along the way, and they had no idea of where we actually were, but no one wanted to admit it. Maybe we’d wandered off the path that we were supposed to follow and no one had any idea of how to get things right again. Because if this was where we had planned to go all along, then I didn’t understand anything anymore.

“Yes,” Rufus assured me, and Daniel didn’t say anything to contradict him. “Why are you asking?”

“Is this the place?” I asked again, clearly indicating the tiny little building to be certain of it. “Really? That house there? That very small house there?”

I had been promised something that I would like, something that would impress me, leave me breathless. I was sorry, but I couldn’t help being disappointed by what I saw. I did not feel impressed by it. It did not seem like it could be anything that I liked that much. I certainly wasn’t standing there looking at it, breathless.
“Yes, that’s the place.”

Rufus seemed so sure of his answer that there could be no mistake about it, so I just shut my mouth and stared at it in silence, trying to discover the secret that could be hidden in that thing that was, in all honesty, nothing more than a shack in the middle of a wild forest. What was it about this place, that had made them all speak of it with so much praise? What was its secret, the thing that was supposed to make such a special place?

Despite its proximity, the small was more difficult to reach than I had first believed. We had to trudge on an uneven ground, full of traitorous bushes and branches and rocks. When we eventually reached it, the house looked in an even sorrier state than what I had imagined. I doubted that anyone could live in there. It was so isolated that living here seemed virtually impossible to live here, without even taking into account the state of the house. I was more than trouble by the way things were going, and the only thing I could was wait to see what would happen.

What happened was that Rufus simply rang the bell on the side of the door. The simple fact that there was a bell was astonishing. Seeing the state of the environment around us, I would have said that no one had lived here for centuries. We waited for a long moment. There was no sound inside, and I began to suspect that either the bell wasn’t functioning, or there no one in there.

“Maybe we should try again,” I said, but my companions ignored my remark. The wait didn’t seem to bother them. They seemed to think that it was something perfectly normal that it took so long for someone to answer our call.

“Or maybe we could try to open the door,” I proposed again.

Daniel shook his head and smiled. “It’s going to be locked, of course,” he answered. “There might not be much passage round these parts, but it’s still better to be careful.”

I considered the house again, and repressed a sigh. It wasn’t as if there was much to steal in there. From the look of it, it was probably empty anyway. Empty and deserted, because there was no one coming.

Just as I was about to lose all patience, suddenly there was some noise inside. Someone was unlocking the door. The place was inhabited after all. Soon, the door was opened, revealing the face of an old man. He examined our company for a few seconds, then, slowly, his lips stretched into a smile, and he opened the door more widely.

“Rufus, Daniel,” he said. His voice was warm, unexpectedly welcoming, considering that we had just popped out of nowhere to knock at his door without a warning. “It’s been too long.”

“Almost a year,” Daniel answered quietly.

The old man nodded. “Yes, that is correct. It good to see you boys. And I see that you have brought a friend along. The introductions will, alas, have to wait until we get inside.” He cast a quick look at the surroundings. “I hope you don’t think me rude for it, miss,” he added, “but safety is of course my primary concern. Now if you would all please get in.”

He ushered us inside with a certain rush. As I passed in front of him, I observed the old man from the corner of my eye. His hair was as white as the snow outside, and there were deep wrinkles on his face, but his eyes were very much young and alive. He was short, but his age was only visible in the wrinkles on his face, not in the way he carried himself.

Once everyone was inside, the old man locked the door behind us. Inside the house, everything was dark. The only light came from the lone, small window, and the window panes were so covered in dust that it didn’t let much of the sun inside. The old man tottered through the room, flicked a switch on the wall opposite the door, and then there was momentarily light in the room. I took advantage of this opportunity to quickly examine it. It was every bit as I had imagined that it would be. The furniture was scarce and old. Everything was clean, that was true, but on the whole the house didn’t look well looked after. In the room where we were standing, there was a small kitchen. There were also a table and three chairs. One door lead to a second room on the back, but it seemed that this was all that there was inside the house. If this was the library, then I didn’t have the faintest idea of why it had been called that way.

“I believe I should introduce myself now,” the old man said once the light was on, speaking in a very distinguished and polite manner. He smiled gently. “Arnaud de Lisle,” he said, looking at me, “at your service.”

I was taken aback by his way of talking, and his gentle smile. It took a short moment before I even thought about answering.

“Aimée,” I said, not really at ease. “Just Aimée…”

He smiled amusedly again. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Likewise,” I muttered. That Arnaud seemed like a pleasant man in every aspect, but I felt the need to justify my presence here, to explain why I was here. I looked at Daniel and Rufus in turn, but none of them seemed to notice my trouble, or to think that I needed a deeper introduction. And apparently the fact that I was with them was enough for Arnaud to accept my presence.

“Well,” Arnaud said, nodding slowly, “now that everyone is properly introduced, we should head downstairs quickly. It’s the most comfortable place for a discussion, up here?”

I frowned at the mention of downstairs. We were on the ground floor, and he could only be talking about some sort of cellar. And cellars were not what I usually associated with the notion of comfort. I would have liked to take a moment to talk to Rufus and Dan, to ask them if they were really sure of what we were doing here. But that was out of the question, completely impossible. So I followed them as they followed the old man in the other room. That second room was a bedroom, as poorly furnished as the first one. Arnaud headed to a corner of the room. There, almost hidden in a corner, was a trapdoor, presumably the entry to the cellar. Arnaud opened it, revealing a staircase. I wasn’t really sure about it, but I took reassurance from Rufus and Daniel’s attitude. There was no light in there, and the end of the stairs disappeared into the darkness. Arnaud took a lamp that lay on the ground to light up the way. Rufus went down first. He didn’t seem to think that there was anything wrong, so I told myself that everything was alright. I took Daniel’s hand, and we followed him down there. Arnaud went last, and closed the trapdoor behind us. For a moment, everything was dark. I tried not to panic, but my heart, for a split second, still missed a beat. Then Arnaud lit up his lamp to show us the way. The stairs were long, definitely not leading us into a proper cellar. They were going so deep under the house that, despite the lamp, I still could not see where they ended. I held on Daniel’s hand more tightly, not as much to guide down the stairs as to reassure myself.

After a long descent, we finally reached the bottom of the stairs. Thanks to Arnaud’s lamp, I could see that we were now in a long, narrow corridor. Rufus, who seemed to know the area, continued his walk without questioning our host on the direction, and even when the corridor divided in two several times, he never hesitated. After a moment, and several more corridors that all looked alike to me, we reached a door. It wasn’t just any door. This one was a large, solid metal door. There was no handle on it, just a small pad on the side. It left me astounded for a moment. Out of everything that I would have expected to find down here, well… there was no door like this. But I was the only one who thought it curious. Rufus just stopped in front of it, and Arnaud hurried to type the code in.

The door slowly moved, revealing lights that, compared to the relative darkness of the corridors that we had just walked through, seemed incredibly bright. We got inside, and this time I really stopped in surprise. The light was coming from two very large crystal chandeliers which hung above a wide room furnished in its center with leather couches. On the walls, there pictures hanging, and there were shelves and shelves and shelves of books. And in the walls, there were doors, leading to other rooms that seemed to be decorated in the exact same way.

I left Daniel where he was standing, and took a few steps inside the room, looking everywhere. This was unbelievable. There was a sort of warmth in here, that I had never felt anywhere else. The lights, not so bright now that I had gotten used to it, created a very particular atmosphere. There was a soft wintery smell in the air, with here and there warmer touches that reminded strongly of the smell of oranges and of cinnamon. I stopped in front of a white, marble statue that represented a man and woman, the woman running from the man, the extremities of her arms turning into leaves. The iconography was completely foreign to me, the signification of the scene a mystery, but the work was that of a truly gifted sculptor. I stood there for a moment, one hand covering my mouth. I was well aware of the looks of Arnaud and Rufus that were on me, but I couldn’t hide my astonishment. This was unbelievable. This was purely unbelievable.

“You don’t regret having to wait, now, do you?” Rufus said softly, joining me as I turned away from the statue to look at the rest of the room again.

I was speechless, completely speechless. How could a place like this one even exist?

“Aimée?” Rufus whispered as I did not answer his question.

I shook my head several times, very slightly. My brain was still having trouble accepting what my eyes were seeing. I eventually slipped my hand in Rufus’s, my eyes still wide and trying to see everything at once. “Thank you.”