“Maybe we can split into teams?” suggested Huifen. “The seniors versus the freshmen?”
“Wait a minute,” said Nathaniel. “That’s not fair.”
“Why not?” demanded Amelia, though she knew the answer.
“How about guys versus girls?” asked Nathaniel.
“There is no ‘versus.’ You’ll do it together,” said Gamache. “As a unit. In the S?reté, we can’t choose our colleagues. They’re assigned. Get used to it.”
“Is this for credit?” Jacques asked.
“No, it’s for experience. If you don’t want to do it, just excuse yourself from the exercise. It’s all the same to me.”
Jacques looked at the map, and despite himself, he wanted to know.
“I’m in.”
“Bon. I’ll have copies made and dropped off to each of you before the end of classes tomorrow.”
The rest of the evening was spent with the students huddling, working out strategies.
The next afternoon, copies of the map were handed to the four cadets, and the day after that there was a knock on the door of Commander Gamache’s office.
“Oui,” he called, and looked up from his desk.
Huifen, Jacques, Nathaniel, and Amelia entered. He took off his reading glasses and gestured toward the sitting area.
“We’ve solved the mystery,” said Jacques.
“Well, you didn’t do much,” said Amelia.
“I was busy.”
“Yes, being head cadet. I’ve heard.”
“I did most of the work,” said Nathaniel.
“How can you—” Huifen began before the Commander raised his hand and silence descended.
He turned to Jacques.
“And?” he asked.
“And this place doesn’t exist.” Jacques gestured dismissively toward the painting. “It can’t be your home, unless you live in a hole in the ground or a tree trunk. There’s no village there. Nothing. Just forest and mountains. We checked on Google Maps and GPS.”
“I even found some old paper maps of the Townships,” said Nathaniel. “Williamsburg is there, Saint-Rémy. Cowansville. But not the village, the one the map is designed around.”
“Three Pines,” said Gamache.
“You lied,” Jacques repeated.
“Be careful, cadet, with your words,” he said softly.
“That’s the mystery though, isn’t it?” said Huifen. “It’s a map to a fictional place. Why would someone do that? Isn’t that what you really want us to find out?”
Gamache stood up and, walking to the door, he showed them out.
They stood in the hallway, looking at the closed door.
“We fucked up somewhere,” said Amelia, clicking her stud up and down.
“Calling him a liar didn’t help,” said Huifen. “Why would you do that? He’s the Commander.”
“In name only,” said Jacques.
“Isn’t that enough?” asked Nathaniel.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Back to the map,” said Amelia. “We were right, weren’t we? The place doesn’t exist.”
“And yet the Commander said he lives there,” said Huifen.
“He’s fucking with us,” said Jacques. “Like the Duke said he would.”
“Well, I know one way to find out,” said Huifen.
*
Armand looked in the rearview mirror. They were still there.
It was early evening and already dark. He’d spotted them as soon as he turned out of the academy parking lot to drive home.
At first he thought there was just one car, but after a few kilometers he noticed a second, hanging further back.
He nodded approval. Someone had been paying attention in class.
It was early March and winter still had its grip on Québec. His headlights caught the ragged edges of snowbanks on either side of the secondary road. He drove through the clear, crisp evening, the two cars still behind him.
And then he lost them. Or, more precisely, they lost him.
Sighing, Gamache pulled over into a Tim Hortons outside Cowansville. Parking under the lights, he waited. One of the cars circled once, twice, and on the third time, they spotted him and turned in, parking well away.
The second car had managed to follow him and had pulled off the road a hundred yards beyond the doughnut shop.
Huifen, he suspected. With Jacques, maybe. But he wondered why they hadn’t just called the others in the first car when they pulled over.
They needed, perhaps, another lesson on what teamwork meant.
As Gamache drove out of the parking lot the first car pulled right out, determined not to lose him again. The second hung back.
Yes. There was more skill there. And confidence.
He decided to take the scenic route home.
*
“Where’s he going?” asked Huifen.
“I don’t know,” said Jacques, bored and hungry. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe he’s lost,” said Amelia.
“Maybe he can’t find the door back into the parallel universe,” said Nathaniel.
It was difficult to tell when he was serious.
“Has anyone been taking notes on where we’re going?” asked Amelia. “I’m lost.”
“That was your job,” said Huifen.
“Mine? I’m in the backseat. I can barely see.”
“Well, I’m driving.”
They argued some more until the road ahead went dark. Very dark. No streetlights. No taillights. No car.
“Tabernac,” said Jacques. “Now where’d he go?”
*
Gamache shook his head.
“I’ll be a little later than expected,” he said into the Bluetooth.
“Lost them again?” said Reine-Marie. “Well, I’ll set more places at the table. They’ll be hungry when they finally find you again.”
“Merci.”
He put his car in gear and started looking for the cadets, finally finding them parked in a service station. He pulled in, and though he didn’t need any, he decided to gas up. Just to see them scramble. And also to explain his own presence there.
*
“Shit, there he is,” said Amelia, sliding down in the backseat. “Get down.”
By now they’d gotten so well into the exercise, they’d almost convinced themselves their lives, and those of others, depended on following this man.
They got down. So far down they missed it when the Commander pulled out.
*
Gamache sighed and paused at the exit to the service station, his blinker on. He all but honked to get their attention.
First thing in the morning, he thought, I’m going to call Professor McKinnon and get her to take the students out and refresh them on trailing a suspect.
Tiring of the exercise and wanting his own dinner, Commander Gamache drove straight home. A motorcade behind him.
*
“Don’t lose him,” said Jacques.
“I’ll make a note of that,” said Huifen. She was starving and they still had to figure out how to get back to the academy after this. By that time, they’d have missed dinner and would have to break into the kitchens or do with the crackers they had stashed in their rooms.
Up ahead, the Commander’s car disappeared from sight, as though he’d driven off a cliff.
“What the hell just happened?” asked Jacques.
Huifen slowed down and edged the car forward. Then she stopped.
“Holy shit,” she whispered. Behind her Amelia and Nathaniel sat up.
Below them, in the middle of the dark forest, was a radiant village.
Huifen turned off the car and the cadets got out, walking forward. Their boots crunching on the snow and their warm breath coming out in puffs.
They stopped at what felt like the edge of the world.
Amelia tilted her head back, feeling the fresh air raw on her cheeks.
Above them, a riot of stars formed horses and birds and magical creatures.
And below the stars, the village.
“It does exist,” whispered Nathaniel.
Gamache’s car drove slowly by old brick and fieldstone and clapboard homes.
Light spilled from mullioned windows and glowed on the snow.
At the far end of the village, the cadets could see people coming and going from what looked like a brasserie, though the view was obscured by three huge pine trees grown up in the very center of the village.
“We should go.” Nathaniel tugged at Huifen’s coat, but the older girl just stood there.
“Not yet. We need to know for sure.”
“Know what?” he asked. “We followed him and found the village. This is the mystery. Not that it doesn’t exist, but that it does. Let’s go before we get into trouble.”