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She wondered why she was so upset. After all, she’d been through worse. Done worse. But she’d never actually witnessed the fallout. She’d thought of the men she’d killed as inhuman. And she knew that she’d had no choice but to do what she did.

But now she was beginning to realize a greater truth. That those men and boys had families. Had motives, however flawed. Had wounds of their own. They almost certainly had not been born with the desire to rape, to torture, to torment and murder.

Now, sitting in the quiet bistro in the quiet village, Haniya Daoud accepted that while the men she’d killed were horrific, were monsters, they were also human.

And maybe, maybe, in realizing the truth, she could finally find some measure of peace. Maybe that was the real prize.

“Would you like to?” Haniya asked. “Apologize, I mean. Maybe you can try it on me.”

Gilbert was about to dismiss the idea, but looking at her, he changed his mind.

“I’m deeply sorry for what happened to your mother. For my shameful part in it. I’m deeply sorry I didn’t do anything to stop it. I should have, and I didn’t. I’m sorry that it led to her death, and for what subsequently happened to your family, and all the families. I’m sorry for all the pain I’ve caused.”

The elderly Asshole Saint searched the face of the young Asshole Saint and noticed that the scars had disappeared. Or rather, they were no longer the first thing he saw when he looked at her.

“I forgive you,” she said quietly. “And I’m sorry too. That you were so hurt, driven mad with brown brown, that you did those terrible things. I’m sorry your life had to end as it did.”

While Vincent Gilbert tried to figure out what she was talking about, and what brown brown was, Haniya lifted the bowl with trembling hands and took her first sip of hot chocolate. And immediately understood its powers to soothe, if not heal. She also understood why Canadians might love winter, if this warm drink came with the snow and ice.

She lowered the mug and smiled at Vincent.

He wondered if he should tell her about the whipped cream mustache but decided not to. Seeing it somehow lifted his spirits.

Once an Asshole Saint . . .

“Before you go, there’s something I’d like to show you,” Clara said the next morning.

She’d asked Haniya over to her home to say goodbye. When she arrived, she found Myrna already there in the now familiar kitchen. Going into the familiar living room, Haniya stopped at the threshold and stared.

Gabri and Olivier stood up and turned to her. As did Reine-Marie. Ruth, holding Rosa, stood next to Stephen. Jean-Guy and Isabelle were there. As were Annie and Honoré and Idola. They’d driven down to Three Pines, to see her off.

They were standing in a semicircle, facing her.

Haniya stepped back. Paused. Then took one step forward. Then another. And completed the circle.

Vincent Gilbert had declined the invitation to Clara’s home, having had more than his fill of humanity to last him the balance of his life.

As he approached his cabin, he heard the blue jays shrieking. In the past he’d chased them off, or at least tried to. But now he stopped at his front porch and opened the sack he’d bought at Monsieur Béliveau’s general store.

Scattering the black sunflower seeds on the white snow, he watched the birds swoop down and pick them up. He went inside then, lit the fire, made a pot of tea, and opened the book Colette had lent him.

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.

He settled in, and read about the South Sea bubble, and the tulip crisis, and the Drummer of Tedworth.

The birds still shrieked, of course. But now it sounded more like company.

“Oh, God,” sighed Ruth. “Not that fucking painting again. Brace yourself,” she said to Stephen.

At Haniya’s request, Clara had made up a batch of hot chocolate with whipped cream. Stephen had poured brandy into his and Ruth’s.

At least the two of them would be quite well braced.

Gabri was practicing saying, “It’s wonderful. It’s brilliant.”

Even Reine-Marie was bracing herself. Like the rest of them, she’d been privy to Clara’s latest effort. Their friend had taken to slapping layers of paint, apparently at random, onto the canvas. Occasionally breaking up the splatters with something hyper-recognizable.

The last one was a banana. Reine-Marie wondered if it was a reference to all those monkeys, but suspected it had no meaning at all. Behind her, Myrna was trying to coax Billy Williams forward, but like the donkeys he raised, he’d put his head down and was refusing to budge.