‘It’s about Isaac … He shouldn’t go back to the headland again.’

Alan poured her a cup of coffee, then went and sat next to the window. A wisp of smoke rose from the smouldering cigarette in the ashtray; he picked it up and opened the windows a little wider. He hadn’t shaved, and the greyish three-day stubble imbued his features with a certain gentleness, and a gravitas that seemed new to him.

‘You were the first to encourage him.’

‘There’s something different about the crowd now … It’s not like it was at the start. And besides …’

Madenn thought about the ominous dull thud that had woken her over the past few nights; the sound of a body being beaten; the vicious, rasping breath like an animal in pursuit of prey. She firmly believed that it was an omen, that it was Death announcing its presence, a premonition like those experienced by her mother, her grandfather, her great-aunt. Countless generations of Bretons had seen the signs of death before it came – the sailors’ wives who saw their husbands walk into the room the very moment the sea swept them away; the clatter of the ghastly cart of Ankoufn2 heard the day before a loved one died; the skeletal hands appearing in a doorway; the severed heads glimpsed in the shadowy corner of a room; the ghostly boats gliding across the waters of the night; the drops of blood that fell from the ceiling – Death in its many forms had appeared so often to the people of this holy, mystical land that they could no longer dismiss such portents.

Madenn laid her trembling hands on the table, her heart still beating wildly.

‘You’ve got to tell Isaac to stop going there. I’ll deal with the crowd. I’ll tell them it’s over, that there’s nothing more to see. Things will go back to how they used to be …’

‘You really want things to go back to how they used to be?’

Through the closed shutters came the sound of footsteps on the grass; someone was creeping around the house. Having become accustomed to prowling strangers, Alan instinctively closed the window. In a curious way, he seemed to accept this new life: the prayers on his doorstep, the shuttered house, the dearth of sunlight, hearing his son hailed by strangers as a messiah, a visionary, a prophet. Alan heard all these names but scorned them; only one thing mattered to him now, and for that he was prepared to put up with the rest.

He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.

‘Can’t you see that for the first time in ten years, Isaac isn’t sad?’

The words were like a knife to her heart. The idea that Madenn had not noticed something so obvious, this woman who fed his son every day, who could sense his mood at a glance, who could recognize him by the way he breathed …

Madenn jumped up from the chair, her lips quivering, checking the tears that welled in her piercing blue eyes.

‘Of course I can! What do you take me for?’

‘Then why? Why do you want to take this away from him?’

‘Because it’s not safe out there any more!’

‘You’re the one who got him into this situation!’

‘Please don’t argue, the two of you.’

Standing in the doorway, Isaac looked very different. His face seemed to change with every passing day. Madenn ran over to the boy, begged him not to go back to the headland, pleaded with him to be sensible, told him the island wasn’t safe any more, that a terrible danger was imminent; she could sense it, it kept her awake at night.

Isaac gently took her hands in his.

‘Don’t worry, it will all be over soon.’

The boy disappeared into the shadowy hallway, going off to finish what he had unwittingly started.

Up the road, the begging and pleading were of a different order: it was Michel Bourdieu, standing at the foot of the stairs, alternately folding his arms then putting his fists on his hips, unsure precisely what to do with his hands and deeply unsettled by events that were contrary to his will.

‘For the last time, I don’t want you taking Julia up there. It’s too crowded, it’ll scare her … Are you listening to me?’

In the hallway, indifferent to his agitation, his wife adjusted their daughter’s hat. Ever since they had found Julia playing on the beach, ever since the doctor confirmed he could no longer detect a wheeze, the couple had been at cross-purposes. The incident had been so sudden, so shocking, and although his wife had completely accepted it, Michel Bourdieu was still in denial. What was required now was patience, a detailed, comprehensive check-up, a second opinion from a specialist – this was the argument he had been making since the previous day, one his wife failed to understand. When she looked at Julia, she saw a rosy glow in her cheeks, a twinkle in her eyes, and a renewed sense of wonder, as though their daughter had just come through a long period of convalescence, as though she had been given a second childhood. She was not the same little girl – the frail, delicate child who had been kept prisoner by a body attempting to suffocate her – and this was proof enough for her mother: the truth had no need for useless caveats.

‘We have to go and say thank you to the Blessed Virgin, Papa.’

His daughter, forthright and radiant, forced herself to smile to reassure her father. It was a sad smile, since she was sorry for the tension she had caused in their home.

Michel Bourdieu hunkered down in front of her, suddenly tender and kind.

‘Sweetheart, just because Mummy thinks you’re getting better—’

‘I don’t think it, Michel. I can see it with my own eyes.’

‘For God’s sake! Listen to yourself … How can you say that she’s been cured?’

Michel Bourdieu leapt to his feet with a sudden burst of anger that surprised even him, a blind rage that stifled his tears, because that’s just what he felt right now: a sob in his throat, tears in his eyes. His wife and daughter were walking out of his house; they were going back to that accursed place; they refused to heed his warnings, refused to acknowledge his suffering. Their home had been broken beyond repair; now, whenever they met, it was only to go their separate ways.

His wife looked at him with a mixture of incomprehension and pity.

‘Where’s your faith, Michel?’

The front door closed, and the sound of footsteps retreated. The house returned to shadows; the past days had been one long, interminable night. Michel Bourdieu strode across the living room and slumped on to the sofa. Hugo stood silently in the doorway. Darkness seemed to be closing in on his father, crushing him, turning him into a ghost doomed to haunt a place it could never leave.

The boy went over and quietly sat down on the sofa next to his father. Michel finally looked up and noticed him.

‘You could go with them.’

‘I’d rather stay here.’

This was the son who had lived in the shadow of his older brother, the son he had loved a little less and had sorely underestimated, for it was Hugo who stayed and sat with him all evening in the half-empty house. Michel Bourdieu looked at the boy, not knowing how to express his gratitude. All he could think was that, for those upon whom the Lord heaped troubles, He also sent comfort.

The Virgin had announced one last apparition. Over in Roscoff, in the cafe by the old port, the excitement had begun well before daybreak. Rumours had spread through the whole town, neighbours banged on each other’s doors, phones rang off the hook, and now everyone had crowded into this cafe, the only place that was already open as the sun rose above the horizon and painted a golden tracery on the dark ceiling. ‘Mankind can live only through faith. I promise a miracle that shall be visible to all.’ These were the words brought back by the seer, as attested by multiple witnesses. The miracle was scheduled for the following day, on the island, but this time it was to take place at noon, amid the ruins of the chapel of Saint Anne. Finally, the moment had come; they would see, just as others before them had seen, fortunate witnesses to a divine manifestation: during the visitation of 1947, in L’Île-Bouchard before a joyful crowd, a mysterious ray of sunshine had streamed in through a stained-glass window, illuminating in the choir the precise spot of the apparition, and forcing those near the altar to shield their eyes; in 1917 in Fátima, fifty thousand people watched as the sun was transformed, turned multi-coloured, seemed to loosen itself from the firmament and hurtle towards the earth as though to crush it with its fiery weight; in 1948, at the Carmelite Monastery of Lipa in the Philippines, rose petals fell in showers at the spot where the Blessed Virgin had appeared; all around the world there had been miraculous cures, the scent of incense, haloes of light, statues of the Virgin coming to life, moving their eyes, weeping real tears; and now, a moment in history was about to take place on the island – that morning, no one in the cafe was in any doubt.

Sister Anne was only too aware of the coming moment. Standing at the foot of her bed, she folded a woollen jumper. The half-open shutters let in a muted morning light through her windows. She had not fully opened her shutters since the Bourdieu family had delivered her back here; nor had she left her room, claiming she had a migraine when Sister Delphine had come to see her. She had remained here, between these four walls, no longer looking out to sea, indifferent to this place where she felt so profoundly alien. She placed the jumper in her open suitcase. Her face was calmer, her movements more confident, despite the physical pain she felt each time she folded another piece of clothing, each time she heard the waves outside crashing against the harbour wall. In the suitcase: her crucifix and her Bible, some warm jumpers she had packed in preparation for winter on the coast. She had contacted her Mother Superior and told her she was renouncing her mission in the provinces. She’d had to resort to subterfuge, to convince without giving the true reason for her decision; she could hardly explain to her Mother Superior that she had come here believing she would see the Virgin, convinced that she, like Catherine Labouré, like Bernadette Soubirous, would be among the blessed. She had been naive, and guilty of the sin of pride, and that was why Heaven had favoured another – a boy whose heart was as simple as his body was pure. She had made a spectacle of herself in front of strangers, had flouted common sense and decency. Now all she wanted to do was leave, go back to the sanctuary of the convent, the wan light of Paris, the louring clouds that never seemed to part; she wanted to return to her canonical routine – Lauds, Vespers, Compline – helping to teach novices, taking visitors to see the chapel. Sister Anne wanted nothing more than this peaceful existence, this salutary existence, for it was a life without longing, without aspirations. She had come to realize that we sin even in our expectations.

There came a knock at the door; Sister Delphine appeared and saw the room stripped bare, the wardrobe emptied, the little suitcase almost packed. She did not ask the reason for this departure. She stood in the doorway, a little pale, her hands trembling, until Sister Anne finally noticed her. She left her packing, went over and laid a hand on her shoulder, effortlessly, as she always did, with the instinct she had for drawing people to her.

‘Don’t worry, Sister Agnès will be arriving in a couple of days. She’s young and willing, she’ll be very happy here …’

‘The little Bourdieu girl has been cured.’

The elderly nun, her gaunt face lined with wrinkles, was still troubled by the news she had heard on the church steps, as though she had experienced nothing like it in her long life.

‘A doctor went to examine her and says her asthma has completely disappeared. It’s a miracle.’

Sister Delphine’s bony hands gripped Sister Anne. She was quivering with emotion; having staunchly resisted the hysteria sweeping through the town, now she had finally succumbed, had finally accepted what she had never dared to believe had happened: after sixty years of prayer and service, she at last had proof.

‘And tomorrow, at noon … She will appear to us all!’

She turned and left, slamming the door so hard the walls shook. In a low voice, Sister Anne repeated the words she had just heard. She did so cautiously, making sure not to twist the meaning of what she had been told: the little Bourdieu girl cured of her asthma; a doctor had examined her; it was a miracle. The church bell sounded ten o’clock. Ten times the bell tolled in Sister Anne’s heart, then faded to an echo.

She turned round: on the bedside table, the little statue of the Virgin that she only ever packed at the last minute, placing it on top of everything else. There, carved into the bronze, she saw nothing but the smiling face, and suddenly there seemed to be nothing tender, nothing graceful in that smile: it was a disdainful smile, a mocking smile; the statue was taunting her for being so gullible, heaping scorn on this nun whose prayers she had never answered. Sister Anne grabbed the statue and stormed out of the apartment; outside, a warm drizzle was falling, a net of raindrops that fell without a sound. She crossed the road, heading straight for the harbour wall, for the line where land met sea, where all of this would end. The sweep of her arm as she hurled the miraculous statue – now nothing more than a tacky bronze figurine – into the waves; it sank, disappearing into murky green waters to join the submerged rocks. Meanwhile, on the distant horizon, swathed by mist, lay the ghostly amethyst coastline, the island where Sister Anne had vowed to herself never to return.