“No, here, here,” said Nathaniel, pointing to the ground. “The bistro, though it was a private home at the time, owned by a Monsieur Béliveau.”
“I knew he was older than me,” said Ruth.
“Not, perhaps, the current one,” suggested Myrna.
“I’ll see if he’s in.” Armand got up, and as he walked across the terrasse, past the boulangerie to the grocer, he checked his watch.
Past six. It was a warm, still evening, the scent of peony and old garden roses in the air. The sun was still well up in the clear sky and wouldn’t set for another few hours.
When he returned, the elderly grocer was with him.
“You’re wondering about the Valois family?” he asked.
Armand indicated his chair, and Monsieur Béliveau bowed slightly and sat.
“Did you know them?” asked Nathaniel.
Monsieur Béliveau’s somber face broke into a smile. “I’m not quite that old.”
“Told you,” Myrna whispered to Ruth.
“But my grandfather knew them. He owned this building at the time and rented to Madame Valois. She was a widow, I believe.”
“Yes, with three sons,” said Huifen. “She must have been memorable, for your grandfather to tell you about them.”
“She wasn’t,” said Monsieur Béliveau. “And neither were the boys. They were just regular kids. What was memorable was what happened to them. All three died on the same day. At the Somme. My grandfather said he could still hear her wail, years later. Just the wind through the pines, my grandmother would tell him. But he insisted it was her.”
Reine-Marie looked at Armand. How often had they heard that howl from the forest?
“Why didn’t you tell us all this before?” asked Huifen.
“Because you were asking about Antony Turcotte,” said Monsieur Béliveau. “Not Madame Valois. I’d never heard of Turcotte.”
“Well, where does he come in then?” asked Gabri.
“After her sons were killed, Marie Valois went to live in Roof Trusses,” said Jacques. “She died just after the war.”
“Spanish flu probably,” said Myrna. “Judging by the date on the headstone. It killed millions in 1919.”
“Why would she leave Three Pines?” asked Gabri.
“You’ve never been a mother,” said Reine-Marie.
“He’s been a mother—” began Ruth.
“Ah,” said Jean-Guy, holding up Honoré, his little feet dangling. “Not in front of the baby.”
“She didn’t leave,” said Monsieur Béliveau, and all heads turned to him.
“Pardon?” said Clara.
“Madame Valois. She didn’t leave Three Pines. At least, she didn’t mean to. Not forever. She kept renting the place from my grandfather.”
“But, Roof Trusses?” said Olivier, not sure how to form the question.
“She wanted to get away,” said Monsieur Béliveau. “But just for a while. I think it was too painful for her here. But she always planned to come back. This was her home. She left most of her things here.”
“Including that,” said Myrna, pointing to the old map that had been placed on the table.
“But if all the boys were killed, how did the map get back to their mother?” asked Clara.
“It didn’t,” said Armand. “This map never left. It was made after the boys were missing in action. Before she left for Roof Trusses. In case.”
“In case?” Jacques asked.
“In case they weren’t dead,” said Reine-Marie.
“This whole village is one big orienteering exercise,” said Jean-Guy. “The map, the stained-glass window, the compass rose.”
“She made them each a map, to take with them,” said Armand. “So they could find their way home, and then she made another, so they could find her.”
“You mean she commissioned the maps,” said Huifen. “Antony Turcotte actually made them. The man in the toponymie office was certain. He must’ve been her father, or maybe a brother or uncle.”
“No,” said Gamache. “I mean she made them.”
The cadets, confused, looked at him, then at each other.
“Marie Valois was Antony Turcotte,” said Gamache. “She used her maiden name when she started making maps.”
“I don’t understand,” said Huifen.
“Probably a good thing that you don’t,” said Myrna. But she understood. “Back then, a hundred years ago or so, women weren’t encouraged to have jobs, and they sure weren’t encouraged to have a profession.”
“So they often took men’s names,” said Clara. “Painters did it. Writers and poets often used men’s names. She might have learned mapmaking by watching her husband, and then discovered that she was far better at it.”
“Not the first wife to excel at the same profession as her husband, but have to hide it,” said Myrna. “The men often took credit for their wives’ work.”
Huifen looked perplexed. It was, to her, inconceivable. And ancient history.
“So you’re saying all those maps—” began Huifen.
“Were done by Marie Valois,” said Gamache. “Oui.”
Amelia was nodding. “Monsieur Toponymie said that no one actually met Antony Turcotte. It was all done by correspondence. No one ever knew.”
“How sad, then,” said Reine-Marie, “that after mapping and naming all those towns and villages, Marie Valois finally had one named after her. But not for her work as a cartographer. But because of the enormity of her grief.”
“Notre-Dame-de-Doleur,” said Armand.
They looked at the photo of the smiling farm woman, between her tall sons.
“But assuming what you say is true,” said Olivier, “why did she take Three Pines off the maps of Québec?”
Reine-Marie brought out the small sepia photo. Older even than the one already on the table.
They leaned toward it and saw three grinning boys, children, covered in dirt, their boots resting on spades, and in front of each was a sapling.
“They planted the trees,” whispered Gabri. He hadn’t meant to whisper, but that was all that came out.
“The others blew down in a terrible storm,” said Monsieur Béliveau. “Two fell and one was badly damaged. Gilles Sandon’s great-grandfather cut it down. Made the floors of the bistro and bookstore with them. The village was devastated by the loss, my grandfather told me. But one morning they woke up and those saplings had been planted. They never knew who did it.”
He and the others looked across the village green to the three pines. Strong and straight. And still growing.
“I think it was just too painful a reminder,” said Reine-Marie. “So close to losing her sons. So Madame Valois took the village off the map before sending it in to the toponymie department. It might even have been a spur-of-the-moment decision. Erasing the village, as though she could erase her sorrow.”
“But as Monsieur Béliveau said, she always meant to come home again,” said Armand. “To return to Three Pines. And return the village to the map.”
“Then why didn’t she?” asked Gabri.
“She died before she could,” said Reine-Marie.
“Of the flu,” said Myrna.
Of grief, thought Reine-Marie. And heard a small moan from the forest, while on the village green the three pines swayed and played, reaching out their branches to touch each other.
“Velut arbor aevo,” said Amelia.
“As a tree with the passage of time,” said Armand.
*
The next morning, Armand and Reine-Marie got up just as a soft blue appeared in the sky. The morning was fresh and mild, and dew was dripping off the lady’s mantle and the roses and the lilies. With Gracie on a leash and Henri running free, they walked across the village green to the three pines.
“Ready?” asked Reine-Marie.
“Not quite,” said Armand, and took a seat on the bench.
Just as the sun rose, so did he.
He walked over to the pines and chose a spot. Then he put his foot on the spade.
“Can I help?” came the familiar voice.
He turned to see Jean-Guy, a little bleary after a night comforting his crying child.
Honoré was in his arms. Sleeping now that Papa was awake.
Armand smiled. “Merci, but no. This is something I need to do myself.”
Not because it was easy, but because it was difficult.
The sun rose higher and the hole got deeper, until finally he stopped and picked up the box that had sat in the basement for too long.