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“She’s a friend of yours?” Gilbert asked Stephen.

“Not her. It’s the duck who’s the friend.”

“Down syndrome?” asked Abigail.

“Idola,” said Annie.

Reine-Marie looked over to Armand, who would be, she knew, watching. And smiled.

Then she turned back to Abigail. “I’d like to show you something.”

The others followed as Reine-Marie led her across to the window and pointed to a pane. “There are others at different windows at the Inn and Spa. In fact, every home and business in Three Pines—”

“Probably Québec,” said Gabri.

“—has one.”

Taped to the windowpane was a child’s drawing of a rainbow, and beneath it the words Ça va bien aller.

“Yes. I’ve seen one at Colette’s home,” said Abigail. But she didn’t seem to be looking at the drawing, but beyond it, to the bonfire.

“It’s the French translation of the Julian of Norwich quote,” said Myrna. “One I believe you know. All will be well.”

“Children drew rainbows,” said Clara, “as I think they did around the world. But here they also wrote that phrase. They gave them away during the first wave.”

Within weeks of the lockdown every home and shuttered business in Three Pines had one in their window.

Ça va bien aller became not just a comfort, but a battle cry. A call for calm and reason. A call for resistance to despair. To panic. To loneliness. To denial and even idiocy.

It had given the villagers hope that they’d one day return to Myrna’s bookshop and sit by her woodstove. That they’d meet in the bistro for drinks. That they’d be invited to each other’s homes for a meal.

That they’d once again hug. And kiss. Or just touch.

Ça va bien aller.

One day.

There was no overstating the importance, the power, of that phrase.

And now this academic, this professor, had co-opted it. She was using it to attack the very people it was meant to hearten.

“This one was done by our granddaughter Florence,” said Reine-Marie. She recognized the slapdash nature of it. Though perhaps “exuberant” was a better, if less accurate, word.

Daniel, Annie, and the grandchildren had joined them in Three Pines before the travel ban was put in place. Before the bubble closed around them.

But Armand hadn’t made it in, and neither had Jean-Guy. Their absence was felt every moment of every day. And night.

Reine-Marie remembered the day the bistro closed. Then the bookstore. The bakery. Monsieur Béliveau had stayed open, and had quickly run out of toilet paper. And yeast.

The grocer had run himself ragged, and to the brink of bankruptcy, helping others. As had Sarah the baker. As had Olivier and Gabri, making meals for the elderly, for families who’d been thrown out of work. For children whose school food program was no longer an option.

Myrna left books on doorsteps, of friends and strangers, practically emptying her store.

Donning masks and slathering on disinfectant, villagers had delivered meals and medicine. Books and puzzles.

Standing outside, often in the bitter cold, they’d talked to frightened and lonely elderly men and women, through closed windows. Trying to reassure them. And themselves.

All would be well.