In the StoryThe Children of the Lake
There are four of them in the photograph. They all remember a fifth. Sorting through old summer-camp slides, Maud Lenoir rediscovers the summer of 1996: the windbreakers, the games, the lake. And an absence that makes no sense. She is not the only one who remembers this child. Other adults carry the same missing piece, with details they thought belonged only to them.
Open the novel ↗A moment in the opening pages
Giraud showed them the purpose of the visit. The company was due to remove an old concrete drain discovered beneath the bank the following Monday. Before that, the library wanted to establish one thing: whether the low wall visible in F18 belonged to that structure or an older one. It was a question of provenance, not a question about Maxime. Nora had insisted on that in the authorization email, then on the phone, then again on the form they had just signed.Read the excerpt ↗