(Excerpt )

They took their leave with kisses and promises about tomorrow’s bread, tomorrow’s leaking roof. Their footsteps faded along the planks and quay.

Silence seeped back in, not the heavy kind, but the familiar, worn-in quiet of her barge at night. Elodie stacked the last plate in the sink, rinsed the glasses, and hung the cloth over the rail to dry.

Her body felt pleasantly tired from the work, but under the physical fatigue lay another layer: a sort of hollowness in the chest, the echo of having been watched and questioned in her own space.

She stood a moment at the edge of the deck, looking at the dark line of the opposite bank. The river slid past, smooth and indifferent.

Pistou jumped up onto the rail again, taking his usual spot. Elodie ran a finger lightly along his back.

“Enough performing for one day,” she said. “We will return to our usual programme tomorrow. Tea, books, and no one asking what we are running from.”

He flicked an ear, eyes half closed, body aligned with the length of the barge. A faint breeze lifted the fur along his spine.

Inside, the small galley light cast a rectangle of warmth onto the deck. Elodie followed it in, pausing to close the hatch partway behind her.

The plates would wait until morning. The questions that had been asked tonight, and the ones that had not, would also wait, whether she liked it or not.

For now, she put the kettle on, watched the small red glow appear under the metal, and let the rhythm of the river under the hull ease her toward sleep.