"Have we met?" Ruth asked, then turned to Reine-Marie.

"Where's n.u.m.b.n.u.t.s?" she asked.

"He and Annie left for the city, along with Isabelle and the kids," said Reine-Marie.

She knew she should have chastised Ruth for calling their son-in-law n.u.m.b.n.u.t.s, but the truth was, the old poet had called Jean-Guy that for so long the Gamaches barely noticed anymore. Even Jean-Guy answered to n.u.m.b.n.u.t.s. But only from Ruth.

"I saw the Lepage boy come flying out of the woods again," said Ruth. "What was it this time? Zombies?"

"Actually, I believe he disturbed a nest of poets," said Armand, taking the bottle of red wine around and refilling gla.s.ses, before helping himself to some of the salsa with honey-lime dressing. "Terrified him."

"Poetry scares most people," said Ruth. "I know mine does."

"You scare them, Ruth, not your poems."

"Oh, right. Even better. So what did the kid claim to see?"

"A giant gun with a monster on it."

Ruth nodded, impressed.

"Imagination isn't such a bad thing," she said. "He reminds me of myself when I was that age and look how I turned out."

"It's not imagination," said Gabri. "It's outright lying. I'm not sure the kid knows the difference anymore himself." He turned to Myrna. "What do you think? You're the shrink."

"I'm not a shrink," said Myrna.

"You're not kidding," said Ruth with a snort.

"I'm a psychologist," said Myrna.

"You're a librarian," said Ruth.

"For the last time, it's not a library," said Myrna. "It's a bookstore. Stop just taking the books. Oh, never mind." She waved at Ruth, who was smiling into her gla.s.s, and turned back to Gabri. "What were we talking about?"

"Laurent. Is he crazy? Though I realize the bar for sanity is pretty low here." He watched as Ruth and Rosa muttered to each other.

"Hard to say, really. In my practice I saw a lot of people whose grip on reality had slipped. But they were adults. The line between real and imagined is blurred for kids, but it gets clearer as we grow up."

"For better or worse," said Reine-Marie.

"Well, I saw the worse," said Myrna. "My clients' delusions were often paranoid. They heard voices, they saw horrible things. Did horrible things. Laurent seems a happy kid. Well adjusted even."

"You can't be both happy and well adjusted," said Ruth, laughing at the very thought.

"I don't think he's well adjusted," said Antoinette. "Look, I'm all for imagination. The theater's fueled by it. Depends on it. But I agree with Gabri. This is something else. Shouldn't he be growing out of it by now? What's the name for it when someone doesn't understand, or care about, consequences?"

"Ruth Zardo?" said Brian.

There was surprised silence, followed by laughter. Including Ruth's.

Brian Fitzpatrick didn't say a great deal, but when he did it was often worth the wait.

"I don't think Laurent's psychotic, if that's what you're asking," said Myrna. "No more than any kid. For some, their imagination's so strong it overpowers reality. But, like I say, they grow out of it." She looked at Ruth, stroking and singing to her duck. "Or at least, most do."

"He once told us a cla.s.smate had been kidnapped," said Brian. "Remember that?"

"He did?" Armand asked.

"Yes. Took about a minute to realize it wasn't true, but what a long minute. The girl's parents were in the bistro when he came running in with that news. I don't think they'll ever recover, or forgive him. He's not the most popular kid in the area."

"Why does he say things if they aren't true?" asked Reine-Marie.

"Your children must've made things up," said Myrna.

"Well, yes, but not anything so dramatic-"

"And so vivid," said Antoinette. "He really sells it."

"He probably just wants attention," said Myrna.

"Oh G.o.d, don't you hate people like that," said Gabri.

He put a carrot on his nose and tried to balance it there.

"There's a seal just asking to be clubbed," said Myrna.

Ruth guffawed then looked at her. "Shouldn't you be in the kitchen?"

"Shouldn't you be cutting the eyes out of a sheet?" asked Myrna.

"Look, I like the kid," said Ruth, "but let's face it. He was doomed from the moment of conception."

"What do you mean?" asked Reine-Marie.

"Well, look at his parents."

"Al and Evelyn?" asked Armand. "I like them. That reminds me." He walked to the door and picked up a canvas tote bag. "Al gave me this."

"Oh, G.o.d," said Antoinette. "Don't tell me it's-"

"Apples." Armand held up the bag.

Gamache smiled. When he'd dropped off Laurent, his father Al had been on the porch, sorting beets for their organic produce baskets.

There was no mistaking Al Lepage. If a mountain came alive, it would look like Laurent's father. Solid, craggy. He wore his long gray hair in a ponytail that might not have been undone since the seventies.

His beard was also gray and bushy and covered most of his chest, so that the plaid flannel shirt underneath was barely visible. Sometimes the beard was loose, sometimes it was braided and sometimes, like that afternoon, it was in its own ponytail so that Al's head looked like something about to be tie-dyed.

Or, as Ruth once described him, a horse with two a.s.ses.

"Hi, cop," Al had said when Armand parked and Laurent had jumped out of the car.

"h.e.l.lo, hippie," said Armand, going around to the back of the car.

"What's he done now, Armand?" Al asked as they yanked the bike out of the station wagon.

"Nothing. He was just slightly disruptive in the bistro."

"Zombies? Vampires? Monsters?" suggested Laurent's father.

"Monster," said Armand, closing the hatchback. "Only one."

"You're slipping," Al said to his son.

"It was on a huge gun, Dad. Bigger than the house."

"You need to clean up for dinner, you're a mess. Quick now before your mother sees you."

"Too late," said a woman's voice from the house.

Armand looked over and saw Evelyn standing on the porch, hands on her wide hips, shaking her head. She was much younger than Al. At least twenty years, which put her in her mid-forties. She too wore a plaid flannel shirt, and a full skirt that fell to her ankles. Her hair was also pulled back, though some wisps had broken free and were falling across her scrubbed face.

"What was it this time?" she asked Laurent with a mixture of amus.e.m.e.nt and weary tolerance.

"I found a gun in the woods."

"You did?"

Evelyn looked alarmed and Gamache was once again amazed that this woman still believed her son. Was that love, he wondered, or the same form of delusion Laurent suffered from? A potent combination of wishful thinking and madness.

"It was just the other side of the bridge. In the woods." Laurent pointed with his stick and almost hit Gamache in the face.

"Where is it now?" she asked. "Al, should we go and see?"

"Wait for it, Evie," her husband said in his deep, patient voice.

"It's huge, Mom. Bigger than the house. And there's a monster on it. With wings."

"Ahhh," said Evelyn. "Thanks for bringing him back, Armand. Are you sure you don't want to keep him for a while?"

"Mom."

"Go inside and wash up. We're having squirrel for dinner."

"Again?"

Gamache smiled. He was never sure if what they claimed to eat was the truth. He actually thought they were vegetarians. He did know they were as self-sufficient as possible, selling their organic produce in panniers to subscribers. He and Reine-Marie among them.

In the winter they made ends meet by teaching courses on how to live a sustainable lifestyle. It was one of the great miracles that these two should find each other. Like Henri and Rosa. And then that Al and Evie should, later in life, have a child. One miracle begetting another. A wild child.

"Why's it always guns?" Al asked.

"Well, you're the one who gave him that stick for his birthday," said Evie. "Now all he does is dive behind furniture shooting at monsters. I can't tell you how often I've been mowed down," she confided in Armand.

"It's meant to be a magic wand," said Al. "At most a sword. Not a gun. I'd never give him a gun. I hate them."

"You gave him a stick and an imagination," said Evie. "What did you think a nine-year-old boy was going to do with it?"

"It's a wand," said Al to Gamache.

Armand smiled. If he'd given his son, Daniel, a stick for his ninth birthday there'd still be tears twenty years later. What kid not only accepts the stick, but cherishes it?

"Say hi to Reine-Marie," said Evie. "The next pannier's almost ready, we're just finishing the harvest. In the meantime, take this."

She handed him the sack of McIntosh apples.

"Merci," he'd said, trying to sound sincere, and surprised.

Evie went inside and Al followed her, turning to Gamache at the door. "Thank you for bringing him home."

"Always. He's a great kid."

"He's crazy, but we love him." Al shook his head. "A gun."

A monster, thought Armand as he got in the car and drove home.

But the monster he was thinking of wasn't from Laurent's imagination. This one was very real. And had a name and a pulse, though not, Gamache suspected, a heartbeat.

"Why don't you like Laurent's parents, Ruth?" Reine-Marie asked, putting the chicken stew with fresh herb dumplings on the table.

They'd moved into the large country kitchen and taken seats at the pine table. Antoinette cut the bread while Gabri tossed the salad.

"It's not her, it's him," said Ruth, putting her gla.s.s on the table and looking at them. "He's a coward."

"Al Lepage?" asked Brian. "I'd heard he was a draft dodger, but that doesn't make him a coward, does it?"

Both Ruth and Rosa glared at him but said nothing.

"They were kids themselves at the time, drafted into a war they didn't want to fight," said Armand. "They gave up home and family and friends to come here. Not exactly the easy option. They took a stand. I don't think they were cowards at all. I like Al."

"They took a stand by running away?" said Ruth. "Some other kid had to go in his place. Do you think he thinks of that?"

"This whole village was settled by people fleeing a war they didn't believe in," Myrna pointed out. "The three pines is an old code for sanctuary."

"More like asylum," said Gabri.