In partnership with Rocambole, the app for reading differently, we are offering a new episode of Tina Bartoli's literary soap L'Ancre Noire every day at 5 p.m.
Summary of previous episodes: Clémence, consultant overwhelmed by her success, dreams of becoming a writer. She won a three-week coaching session with Jean De Saint Geores, an author whom she admires. He welcomed him to his property in the Vosges, the former home of the ruined colonial merchant of the 18th century. The atmosphere is heavy in the house, the coach imposing on the young woman a frantic pace.
Venturing into an unexplored wing of the boat, Clémence came across four 18th century anchors, one of which particularly disturbed her, that of L'Espérance. The young woman indeed knows very well the history of this boat, since her former companion Abel, professor of history had reconstituted this frigate with a group of pupils. Together they planned to recreate the route of this ship converted at the end of the 18th century in the slave trade, and disappeared during a storm in the Caribbean, swallowing up a treasure that Abel had the ambition to find. But the professor had never returned.
Discovering her secret, De Saint Geores sequesters Clémence in a cellar and the sum of finishing the book she is writing, otherwise she will disappear without a trace ... Octave, the son of her executioner, seems ready to help her flee. But one evening in the bathroom, Clémence discovers terrifying photos of women engulfed by the lake ...
EPISODE 10 - In the bowels of the castle
Raising my head, I saw a small hatch close. It was so well concealed that I hadn't paid attention to it until then. So every day someone watched me shower. It was probably from there that the bottle of disinfectant and the cotton had miraculously fallen. It could only be Octave. Polaroids in hand, I was thinking at full speed: if there was a hatch in this blind spot, it was because there was a passage, therefore a possibility of fleeing.
The hatch was placed too high for me to reach it, and by stacking the few pieces of furniture in the apartment, I took the risk of making noise and thus alerting De Saint Geores. Anyway, it was too small for me to slip into.
I hurriedly put on my clothes and frantically ran into the apartment in search of the life-saving outcome. I was spinning like an insect panicked by the light, but couldn't find any leads. Excited by this discovery which finally let me glimpse a glimmer of hope, my research was muddled: I circulated from one place to another, opening the wardrobe door, lying down under the bed, dismantling the platform from the bathtub, rummaging in the curtains. But nothing, nothing, no clue. The more I searched, the more I got angry and the less efficient I was. So I decided to take a moment of my time to think calmly. If there was a hatch, there was a passage; so I had to inspect the walls surrounding the bathroom. This is what I did by tapping my fist to try to find a hollow resonance. But I soon realized that the freestone walls of the mansion were so thick that they were opaquely silent. I then focused on the layout of the rooms from the bathroom to imagine the most logical layout. My mental journey led me to the hangings torn apart by De Saint Geores in the afternoon. And there, hidden behind the heavy velvet fabric, I discovered a tiny door buried in the wall. As I reached out to grab the small, melted handle in the background, the door to my bedroom suddenly opened, revealing the threatening figure of my torturer. Panicking, I tried in a desperate gesture to force the opening, but she resisted me. De Saint Geores was already rushing at me. He grabbed my throat and slammed me against the wall. He planted his crazy, bulging eyes in mine. Her face was so close that I could feel her warm breath on my cheek. Then, in a voice from beyond the grave, he murmured in the hollow of my ear:
- I think, madam, that it is time to end our collaboration.
I felt his fingers enter the flesh of my neck, squeeze the windpipe. He continued, without loosening his grip:
- How many chapters are left?
Short of air, I was suffocating, unable to make a sound. He shook me and repeated to me, yelling:
- How many chapters are left?
I had to save time and convince him to let go of my throat.
- Five max, I managed to articulate in a breath.
- You can make it shorter.
- Three?
- Just a little more effort.
- Of them ?
- Do you think that in two chapters you can brilliantly conclude MY book?
-…
My head was starting to spin.
- Answer!
- Yes, no, I don't know!
- Two chapters, it's nothing, huh?
-…
- It is written in a flutter of eyelashes.
- Yes.
- You're sure ?
- Yes Yes.
- In this case, I no longer need you; two chapters, it's in my strings.
Without letting go, he opened the small hidden door:
- Before you die, are we going to play a little okay? You'll see, we're going to have fun.
He threw me on the threshold and closed the door behind me.
I was in complete darkness. Shocked, I needed a little time to recover my spirits. I put my hand to my throat. I was sick. Was it the memory of De Saint Geores' embrace or fear?
My eyes getting used to the darkness, I guessed the stone steps sinking into the darkness. An insidious and icy draft drew into it; I recognized the dismal complaint of the wind which was unleashed outside. What to do ? This dark and cold corridor seemed very uninviting, but it was my only way out. I needed a little light to direct me in the bowels of stone. I then thought of the little bundle of matches that was sleeping in my bag. As I put my hand on the small handle to open the door, a cry of rabid beast from my room burst. The crash of overturned furniture made me jump. In his madness, De Saint Geores was destroying the room of my captivity. Terrified, I jumped to my feet and plunged into the sepulchral corridor. My progress was slow and painful: the steps were uneven, the corridor narrow and the cold penetrating. My hands following the wall were constantly caught in light and tough threads; probably the webs of spiders whose kingdom I crossed blindly.
Finally, the long course of steps stopped. With my toes, I assessed the ground.
I groped forward, hands outstretched to guess a possible obstacle. Suddenly, I heard a slam, like a door closing, then nothing. I then felt a great draft in my back accompanied by a sneaky rustle. Something brushed against me and, before I could understand the nature of these strange sensations, I was caught in a cloud of wings and piercing cries. An army of bats fell on me. Panicked, I yelled and crouched down, arms over my head. But this attitude was useless: I had to find the strength to overcome my anxiety to move forward and get out of this teeming trap. On all fours, head tucked into the shoulders, relentlessly struck by the simmering fauna, I was looking for a way out but I was constantly hitting the cold stone wall. While insidiously I felt my will weaken, my hands finally touched what seemed to be an angle. Yes, there was a hole! Still on my knees, I rushed over, leaving the flapping wings behind me.
I was now in an even narrower corridor; the walls on either side seemed to close over me. The floor tiles were damp and icy, the walls oozed, I shivered. When I got up, I almost hit the ceiling. I felt little furtive shocks on my legs, invisible hands trying to grab hold of my ankles. In complete darkness, I then perceived the dismal sound of a creak, as if we were opening a rusty gate. Then suddenly the light from a tired old ceiling lamp blinded me. I was in a stone corridor which sank as far as the eye could see in the bowels of the castle. The light went out, turned on again, then began to flash frantically. I lowered my eyes and understood with horror the origin of the little slaps on my ankles: the corridor was swarming with rats. At that moment, I was deafened by the crackling of the megaphone spitting the devilish laughter of my executioner:
- So, do you like the ride? I told you we would have fun! And it's not over: you will see, the epilogue that I have planned for you is breathtaking!
Terrorized, I started to run under the flashing light. I crushed the rodents which galloped in an irrational and disorderly course. They covered the floor and the walls, it fell on my shoulders, some bit me, others struggled in my hair.
Despite the panic, I noticed a large iron ring that seemed to act as a handle. It was attached to a heavy door carved directly into the stones of the oozing wall. I threw myself on it, pushing with all my might. Finally, it slowly opened with a sinister creak. As I weighed my full weight again to close it, a few rodents tried to follow me. I ran across a large rat that cried out in pain.
When I turned around, the light was on; as if they were waiting for me. I knew this room! I was in the anchor cellar. Hope was there, she was waiting for me. Paralyzed by the horror, I noticed a square object placed near its ring: a polaroid camera.
(…)
Check out the next episode right here on April 3 at 5 p.m. or on the Rocambole app for iOS or Android.
- Investigation
- Literature
- Books