Julien watched the huddled forms of the boys who had crept into their beds so as not to wake him and now slept soundly. Gazing at them, he felt old. Three years had passed since he’d been in school himself, and fought with his closest school friend, and realized the world had changed before they knew what was happening.

“We teach them to live in the woods,” Max told Julien the following day about the expeditions with the children. “It’s fun and games, but someday they may need to survive on their own.”

Julien was polite, but he kept to himself. At night he often sat on the large patio, thinking of his last days in Paris, doing his best to remember details of that time. Sitting in the kitchen watching Lea and Ava prepare Hardship Soup on the day they arrived, his mother in the garden watering the tomato plants, his father in his study, sure that there was logic to the universe, the night they’d buried the few treasures they had left and Lea had looked at him, knowing it took everything inside him not to embarrass himself and cry.

Max came out to find Julien alone, gazing at the dark mountains. When they began to speak of their former lives, it turned out they hadn’t lived far from one another in Paris. Both had gone to the same school. Max was the same age as Victor and knew him from their classes.

“Not that he was the best student.”

“When the school wouldn’t let us continue any longer Victor said that at least we had one thing to be thankful for. Freedom.”

They both laughed. School was once important to them, but now they saw Victor as wise beyond his years.

“Let’s drink to Victor,” Max suggested.

“How do we manage that?” Julien asked.

Max motioned to him, and together they headed to the rear of the property. There was a sweeping view of the lawn, and in the distance the inky outline of the mountains, formed by layers of volcanic rock. The roof and steps at the château were made of this same rough rock, and the top of the roof was fashioned from planks of stone, an old pagan tradition, set there for fertility and joy and happiness.