Remi knelt in the overgrown garden, sunlight streaming through the leaves, as he carved the date on the bark of an old tree. Today marked his new friendship with Antoine, and he wanted to remember it. His hands trembled with excitement, and the knife slipped and cut his finger. The teenager winced as the blood spilled onto the floor. Then he noticed a strange object nestled under the bark of the tree.
At his eye level, caught in the thick grooves of the thousand-year-old oak, a human skull, small in size and with teeth still present, was set in amber. With his eyes, he reconstructed the direction of the body that he imagined to be captive in the wood. The teenager was right, he found the bones of the hand outcropping under the sap a little lower near the roots. He dug a little with the blade that his mother had given him for his twelfth birthday, but he was afraid of damaging it. After several blows to the bark, he was able to distinguish more clearly the structure of the hand and, inside, an old watch. The gilding was bright in the last rays of the sun, and the thick amber had a magnifying effect, allowing him to make out the interior of the object quite clearly. The word « Ed » was engraved in soft lettering. Remi’s heart raced, images of Sherlock Holmes, his hero since the beginning of the fall issues, and of adventures rushed into his head. The smell of damp earth and the rustle of leaves filled the air as he promisedhimself to solve this puzzle in the image of his hero. With rigor and curiosity, and with his head down.
Days turned into weeks, and the boy’s obsession grew. As he searched through the dusty tomes and yellowed newspapers that filled both his parents’ library and the town hall archives, Rémi learned that the land his family owned today had once belonged to the Dubois family. The name seemed strangely familiar, but in a small country village near the capital, it was a common name. Yet this revelation pushed him further, and he was now convinced that a professor named Edouard Dubois had held the precious watch prisoner in the old oak tree.
As winter approached and the brisk ocean air invaded the city, Rémi immersed himself in the history of the Dubois family. Their scientific prowess and ties to the Jacobins only fueled his curiosity. The complex tapestry of their history led him to the heart of the forest that bordered the family land. Beyond the old oaks at the bottom of the garden, further than the stream that ran between the molehills and the burrows.
The day Rémi finally managed to free the clock from the thick trunk, he was captivated by the slow, deliberate movements of its gears. The object resembled a pocket watch but did not tell the time. The slow and erratic movements of the hands and gears seemed to follow their own logic. No matter how many hours Rémi looked at the object, he did not understand what he was looking at. The sensation of being on the edge of the abyss of discovery gave him chills. He felt a deep connection between the Dubois family, the mysterious clock and the trees that surrounded it.
Determined to follow the trail of the skull as much as the past of the Dubois family, Remi followed each of his ideas, from the simplest to the most incredible. It suddenly struck him. All his ideas led him to the heart of the forest, the old part of the cadastre almost erased from the archives. Rémi went into the woods as soon as he had the chance.
In the middle of the large oaks, Rémi was examining the ancient stone slabs. Pagan tombs, lifted by the roots, and among the cut stones, copper tubes, vials polished by the years. Remi climbed up the roots, thicker and gnarlier, when he came across a metal rod emerging from the bark. Again, and with delicacy this time, the young man dug into the wood. It was a pair of old glasses tangled in the bark of the roots. The most striking thing was that the word "Ed" was engraved on the frame. Ed, the old professor whose sad and depressive life he assumed had led him to a lonely death in the woods, had been there. Rémi was certain of it.
The sweet, musky smell of decaying leaves filled the air as Remi ventured further into the forest. As he went deeper into the woods, an ominous presence came over him, and the trees seemed to come alive.
Darkness crept into the forest, and silence fell softly as Remi tried to piece together Edward's story. The anger of the trees became palpable, their movements more abrupt as the wind died down, and the cogs of the clock turned faster. The vibration of the object snapped Remi out of his concentration and he was seized with terror, something was approaching and he was afraid. With his heart pounding, Remi fled the forest, his mind in a whirlwind of questions.
All in his thoughts, Rémi had lost his way. He walked for a long time following the meadows when he finally recognized the familiar bell tower of his village and the pink tiles of his school. At dusk, Rémi entered the neighboring village, the evening mist on the grass was cool under his feet. The name of the central square appealed to him for the first time. Yet he had passed through here several times to accompany his parents to the market or to the farrier's. Place Dubois.
He walked up the main street, the one that ran alongside the large factories in the area. It smelled of cut wood and damp. The last workers were slowly leaving the workshops. Rémi stopped dead in front of the large forged doors of the company. A plaque at the entrance bore the name Eloise Dubois. The company was VerteFleur, the one that had bought the surrounding land and had been cutting down all the surrounding trees for years. Except for those on the family property. Rémi knew that for several months his parents had been looking for a way to support themselves. The world was changing and the family tradition of lighting street lamps in the capital was no longer enough.
Rémi now knew where to look. As soon as school was over, he rushed to the town hall's land registry. But that wasn't enough, he had to wait until the next day and go to the school library to find what he was looking for.
As he pieced together Eloise's story, Remi marveled at her foresight. She had understood that the trees had become sensitive and were feeding an unquenchable anger. The clock, a masterful invention, was intended to decipher their slow movements, in the hope of avoiding a conflict between man and nature and anticipating any act of destruction. But hatred had prevailed and Eloise had suddenly disappeared, leaving the clock, and its skeleton, as a legacy. No one had found it before him.
With the determination of a man possessed, Remi rushed home to share his findings with his family. The closer he got to the house, the faster the clock ticked, as if sensing the urgency of his mission.
Remi could hardly believe what he was seeing. The trees were gone, cut down, their stumps sticking out like the broken bones of a wounded animal. Panic rose in his chest as he thought of the weight of his discovery and the balance maintained for centuries. He saw the silhouette of his parents below and rushed towards them.
He sprinted toward the garden, his heart pounding. When he reached his family, they looked at him with concern, confusion on their faces. Remi struggled to find the words to express his horror at what had been done to the thousand-year-old trees.
And as he caught his breath, trying to sort through his emotions, he felt the clock begin to tick wildly, its hands spinning uncontrollably. The frantic movement seemed to echo the chaos around them. Before Remi could even begin to explain what was happening, the ground beneath their feet began to shake.
The family watched in shock as the great hovel and its high stone walls disappeared beneath the earth. Its walls and foundations cracked and groaned, and the roots of the trees rose up like hungry snakes, pulling the house even deeper. In a few moments, only the chimney was left, and it blew a final plume of smoke before it too was engulfed.
The reality of what had just happened dawned on them. The delicate balance between the trees and the Dubois family had been destroyed, and the disappearance of the house was the first sign of the consequences they would face. Remi's curiosity had revealed the delicate balance that held their world together. But the adults were mysterious beings, and their reactions would remain an enigma to the young boy for years before he became a journalist and tried to slow down the Dubois' and the trees' vengeful frenzy.
It all started in the now silent garden.