Francoeur, with shoulders so broad and arms so strong she ached when he changed his shirt, giving her a glimpse of his bare chest.
Francoeur, who had left her.
Élisabeth did not have time for tears; the widow would be upon her soon. She rose and made for the door, stepping outside and slipping on the slick ground as she made her way to the woodpile. It too was covered in a layer of ice. She ran her hands over the wood but could not pry a single log free from the pile.
“Hell’s teeth,” she muttered, kicking a frozen log and immediately feeling a stab of pain in her toes. She clamped her mouth shut so that Marcosi could not slip out on a string of curses. She turned towards the cowshed. Her husband had stored enough wood for the entire winter in the shed, cords and cords of it cut down from the back of their farm. Her boots skidded on the ice as she shuffled over to the meagre cabin, the same as all the settlers had erected when they first arrived: thin trees bound together with wattle and daub. She reached the door and saw to her dismay that it was barricaded by a drift of snow.
“Blessed Virgin, give me strength.” She kicked at it and found that once the crust of ice had been broken, the snow underneath was soft enough to be pushed aside with her foot. She cleared enough to open the door a few inches and squeezed inside the shed.
She blinked, adjusting to the dim light, aware of shapes in the darkness around her. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them wide again.
There, on top of the woodpile: a man, sitting.
Élisabeth screamed. She stumbled back to the door. She grabbed it andpushed frantically against the snow to be let out. The door caught on the drift on the other side. She looked back.
His skin was blue, his eyes frozen open.
A ghost carved from ice, waiting for a gathering of his fellow damned before awakening to walk the earth.
The fellow damned… like her?
Horrified, Élisabeth banged on the door with her palm. She shouted the names of all the saints in Heaven. With a surge of Marcosi’s strength she lunged, breaking through the door, tumbling into the daylight, tearing her sleeve and the pale skin underneath. She fell to the ground and scrabbled on all fours back towards the house, howling. She looked up and saw her sister running through the woods towards her.
“Lili! Are you hurt?” Marthe cried.
“Her arm is bleeding!” said Thérèse, close behind.
Élisabeth’s lips formed a hoarse rasp. She struggled to her knees as her cap slipped off and her hair fell loose against her face. Marthe squeezed her arm tightly and said something she could not hear. Panting, Élisabeth bent over and tried to get the air back into her lungs, but the demon had grown so large inside her there was no room for her to inhale.
Marthe moaned. “Good grief, here comes the widow Poulin.”
“What’s happened?” the widow called out from a distance. “I heard screaming.”
The voices swirled around Élisabeth, making her dizzy. She was hot and cold at once. She was certain she would faint.
“Tell me what happened,” Marthe urged.
“Dead,” she croaked, pointing at the cowshed. “Man.” She was aware of Marthe squeezing her arm again, and Françoise or Thérèse crying out for God’s help.
The widow reached her side and latched on to her other arm. “What has happened?”
“Lili saw something… someone… dead in the shed.”
Maman Poulin threw her body around Élisabeth’s, squeezing her as tightly as a bear. “Mary, Mother of God, it must be him. Is it the neighbour, Dufossé? He went missing three weeks ago. His wife, Hélène, has just told me so herself. Oh, the poor wretch, to have died without confessing his sins.”
The horror of the man’s perfectly composed, perfectly frozen body came back to Élisabeth and she began to stammer. “ItisDufossé. He is sitting… sitting in the cowshed.”
“Sitting?” Maman Poulin was incredulous.
“On the woodpile.”
“Then he is alive?” asked Françoise.
“He’s fr-fr-frozen,” Élisabeth stuttered. “On the woodpile.”
Maman Poulin shook her by the shoulders. “That can’t be right. What do you mean, he’s sitting on the woodpile? Sitting down, frozen solid?”
Élisabeth swallowed. The widow’s lips were drawn in a firm line. Therewassomething strange about Dufossé sitting with his hands folded in his lap. He seemed almost comfortable. Élisabeth’s fingers began to tingle.
