We came on the wind of the carnival. A wind of change, of promises. The merry wind, the magical wind, making March hares of everyone, tumbling blossoms and coattails and hats; rushing towards summer in a frenzy of exuberance.

Anouk was a child of that wind. A summer child; her totem, the rabbit – eager, bright-eyed, and mischievous.

My mother was a great believer in totems. Much more than just an invisible friend, a totem reveals the secret heart; the spirit; the secret soul. Mine was a cat, or so she said – thinking perhaps of that baby bangle and its little silver charm. Cats are secretive by nature. Cats have split personalities. Cats run scared at a breath of wind. Cats can see the spirit world, and walk the line between light and dark.

The wind blew stronger, and we fled. Not least because of Rosette, of course. I’d known from the start I was carrying a child, and like a cat, I bore her in secret, far away from Lansquenet—

But by December the wind had turned, taking the year from light into dark. I’d carried Anouk with no difficulty. My summer child came with the sun, at four-fifteen on a bright June morning, and from the moment I set eyes on her I knew she was mine, and mine alone.

But Rosette was different from the start. A small, limp, fretful baby who wouldn’t feed, and who looked at me as if I were a stranger. The hospital was on the outskirts of Rennes, and as I waited beside Rosette, a priest dropped by to counsel me, and to express surprise that I would not have my daughter baptized in hospital.

He seemed a calm and kindly man, but too like so many of his kind, with his well-worn words of comfort and his eyes that saw all of the next world, but none of this one. I gave him the usual litany. I was a widow, Madame Rocher, on my way to live with relatives. He clearly did not believe this; looked at Anouk with suspicious eyes and upon Rosette with growing concern. She might not live, he told me earnestly; could I bear to have her die unbaptized?

I sent Anouk to a hostel nearby, while I recovered slowly and watched over Rosette. It was in a very small village – a place called Les Laveuses, on the Loire. And it was to there that I fled from the kind old priest as Rosette’s strength dwindled and his demands became more insistent.

For kindness can kill as readily as cruelty; and the priest – whose name was Père Leblanc – had begun to make independent enquiries regarding any relatives I might have in the region, including who might be looking after my eldest daughter, where she had received her schooling, and the fate of the imaginary Monsieur Rocher – enquiries that I did not doubt would eventually lead him to the truth.