The Watchtower

army knife, and a cotton Liberty-print scarf that matched the one tied jauntily around Octavia’s slim neck.
    “This looks like we’re going on a weeklong expedition.”
    Octavia’s forehead creased with worry. “Just a week? You’re right; we should bring more food.” She went back up to the buffet and, after making sure we were alone in the dining room, used all her hands to gather up prepackaged cheeses, packets of Nutella, rolls, fruit, and hard-boiled eggs. When she got back to the table, she divided the supplies between our two packs.
    “There’s no telling how long it might take to find our way into the Summer Country or whether we’ll be able to stay together. The Valley of No Return is set with snares for the faithless lover—and to Morgane a faithless lover is one who loses faith for even a moment. Once lost there, we could wander for centuries with no sense of direction and no sense of time. There is no direction there, nor time as we know it.” Octavia surveyed the heavily loaded packs, her forehead undulating with concern. I’d once seen a YouTube video of an octopus squeezing through the neck of a Coca-Cola bottle. Octavia looked as though she were considering diving into my backpack and concealing herself wetly in the water canteen. “But this will just have to do. If we get lost up there, starving will be the least of our problems.”
    *   *   *
    The trailhead to the Val sans Retour was a half hour’s drive away, in the village of Tréhorenteuc. There was a car park, a souvenir shop, and a café advertising Galettes de Bretagne and local cider. The trail was carefully marked along with a list of popular sites: the Mirror of the Fairies, the Rock of False Lovers, and the Tomb of Morgane. We passed half a dozen hikers in the first mile: a family with toddlers in tow, teenagers in flimsy footwear giggling and mooning over the Miroir des Fées, and a man outfitted in olive-green cargo pants, anorak, wide-brimmed hat, and wraparound, gogglelike sunglasses who looked as if he were kitted out for a hike up Mt. Everest. We passed a young British couple standing in front of the sign explaining the legend of the valley, the woman teasing her husband that if he got lost, she’d know it was because he “fancied that slag down the pub.” The atmosphere was so carefree and ordinary that it was hard to imagine we were embarking on a quest to find a monster.
    “Isn’t it dangerous for these people to be here?” I asked Octavia when she paused to take a sip from her canteen. “Why don’t they stray into the Summer Country?”
    “They haven’t followed the path you’ve tread,” she answered, wiping her mouth, “and they’re not trying to get to the Summer Country. But”—she paused, glancing into the deep woods—“some do stray into the Summer Country. Every year we hear of disappearances in these woods. Some come back disoriented, dehydrated, confused about what has happened to them, and some”—she took another long swallow of water—“some never come back.”
    She screwed the top back on her canteen and set off again at an even faster pace. I followed, glancing left and right into the woods on either side of the path. It was pretty here, much more wild than Fontainebleau. These trees had never been pollarded or arranged in allées. I recognized oak and beech among the occasional slim limbs of poplars, which reminded me uneasily of Sylvianne. Ferns and wildflowers grew beneath the trees. It was hard to imagine anything malevolent in these woods, but still I quickened my pace to keep up with Octavia, which became easier as the trail became steeper and she slowed down, losing some of her original steam. As the trail climbed out of the hardwood forest of beech and oak and into scrub pine and gorse, the sun fell heavier on our heads and she also stopped more frequently for drinks of water.
    “Are you okay?” I asked when I found her sitting on a rock fanning herself with all her hands at once.
    “It’s just so exposed up here,” she replied, gesturing toward a field of tall grass and purple gorse. “I’d forgotten. I came here once with … une amie  … before I knew Adele, you understand. We were on a sketching tour of Brittany … she was an artist, a student at the École des Beaux-Arts before she met Paul Gauguin and that crowd and came to work at Pont-Aven along the coast not far from here.” Octavia smiled wanly. Her skin, I noticed, was turning a pale blue,