How do you flee when Wrath is unleashed upon the Earth? Where do you flee when the waters of the seas and oceans rise, determined to drown every form of life?
You go higher.
The Keller maso was perched above the woods and above the limit of the fields, on a strip strewn with rocks and a few bushes. Above it there was only the perennial snow and the constant movement of the clouds. In order to reach it from the valley, you had to take a kind of mule path which was gradually reduced to a hint of a track covered in brushwood and eventually vanished amid roots, stones and moss. In the winter, when snow erased all points of reference, it was impossible to find a safe way to get to it.
Or get away from it.
All you could do was head downhill and hope. That was what Marlene did.
She crossed the fields, the snow coming halfway up her thighs, struggled towards the woods, where the blanket of snow was less thick and more compact, and plunged into them.
She nearly slipped and fell several times. Miraculously, she did not.
She passed the clearing where Alex the poacher had seen Simon hugging the dead deer. She kept running, scratched by branches, her movements slowed by the snow, her knees and back aching.
She ran as fast as she could, and when her muscles and lungs begged her to stop she put on even more speed. It was only when she got to the heart of the forest that she allowed herself a brief pause and leaned against a centuries-old spruce. For a few minutes, she felt safe beneath its canopy. She had stopped screaming a while ago, but was still unable to think clearly.
Panic in its purest form.
A sound made her jump, perhaps an animal or just the thud of snow falling from a branch. Her heart in her mouth, she looked around. There was nobody to be seen.
She resumed running.
Or almost.
Now that she was deep in the woods, the strain she felt was overwhelming. She had to watch out for tree trunks lying buried in the snow, be watchful at every step to avoid falling into a covered hole, walk around thorny bushes concealed by the whiteness.
She would not have struggled so much if she had brought snowshoes with her. She had not done so because she had acted on instinct. And now she was starting to waste breath and energy.
At one point, she came across fresh footprints and shuddered. She stopped, bent down to examine them and realised they were her own. In her terror and exhaustion, she had been going round in circles.
She didn’t lose hope. All she had to do was slow down and take more care.
But it was when she slowed down that she noticed the cold. The sweat froze on her neck and she felt nasty shivers up and down her spine. The cold cleared her head a little. The shivers on her back and neck made her think about the night. And she realised she had left wearing only her jacket. Although it was thick, it would not be warm enough if she were caught out in the open at night. Her fingertips had already turned blue. By nightfall, the temperature would drop even lower.
Minus ten? Minus fifteen? Colder still if the wind rose.
Marlene the Brave told herself she would grit her teeth, get down to the valley and from there head south-west, where, she thought, the village she had driven through in her Mercedes was located. Once she was in the village, she would be safe. She would scream, knock on every door. Someone would help her.
You just have to keep going, she told herself. Resist the cold, the tiredness. You have to, for Klaus’s sake.
If she had stayed at the maso, Klaus would have died with her. Just like Kurt, Birgit and Gertrud. And heaven knows how many others. Because Lissy was hungry. But Lissy wasn’t going to have her or her child. She clung to this idea, and yet she was unable to move.
She was exhausted, numb with cold, no longer scared of what she had found in the cellar but of what awaited her shortly. The night and the cold, which would kill her.
I can’t turn back. I can’t . . .
And as she wrestled with this dilemma, she heard Simon Keller’s voice.