‘Yes, Valou, off you go.’

In the mountains, towards the peninsula and along the Bay of Calvi, lights were coming on. Clotilde was just an ant in an apparently infinite field, frightened by the glow-worms. A shadow suddenly passed by the entrance to the yard. It stopped and stared at her before disappearing into the darkness of the barn. Clotilde had just enough time to recognise the witch, the old woman who had cursed them on the road and who appeared in the photographs with Cassanu and Lisabetta.

A few stars already shone above the mountains, like shepherd’s huts which had been inadequately bound to the earth and flown away.

I ask nothing else of you. Nothing at all.

Or perhaps just that you raise your eyes to the sky and look at Betelgeuse. If you only knew, my Clo, how many nights I have looked at it and thought of you.

Which of those stars was Betelgeuse? She had no idea.

Was someone, somewhere, really trying to contemplate the star at the same time as she was? Were they looking in the same direction in a kind of communion, like Saint-Exupéry looking for the Little Prince’s asteroid?

Was it her mother?

It didn’t make sense.

Move, Clotilde told herself. Go back and join Franck, apologise, talk a little more, then leave and forget it all.

The dog left the road and came into the yard just as Clotilde was about to descend from the knoll and return to the pergola. In the gloom she couldn’t make out the exact colour of its coat, but the animal was as fat as a Labrador. A sheepdog, probably. Clotilde liked dogs, as she liked animals in general. She wasn’t afraid of them; in another life, she would have loved to be a vet. Besides, why be afraid of this dog that was running towards her? Cassanu would call off the great beast before it jumped up at her knees or slobbered over her dress. Her grandfather imposed his authority on every Corsican within a radius of thirty kilometres, so he wasn’t about to be disobeyed by a dog.

But Cassanu Idrissi didn’t say a word, didn’t make any kind of gesture.

As the dog approached the hand that Clotilde held out to him, a new shadow broke away from the entrance to the yard. A massive shadow, its arm raised towards the dog, giving precise orders.

Orsu!

A second later, Clotilde heard his voice.

‘Stop, Pacha. Wait here, by my foot.’

The dog froze and didn’t touch her. It was a particularly gentle-looking dog, with humorous eyes that doubtless allowed it to run rings around the goats in its charge. Yet Clotilde’s body slowly collapsed against the trunk of the oak, then, centimetre after centimetre, slid down, as though her legs could no longer carry her, until she found herself sitting trembling on the grass.