"Bonjour, Maman," Philippe whispered into his mother's ear as he hugged her. She had aged ten years despite the fact being that only five had passed. Her face was an ancient parchment, lined and translucent with age. The few white hairs that adorned her head were twisted into a tumbling bun. She pulled away, wiping the tears lodged in her beady little eyes which had always reminded him of those of a crow's. Small, but intense. Her lips twitched, revealing three gaps that had replaced her front teeth.

And her eyes fell on his ear—the one an arrow had nicked during the chase. Her smile faltered. "Philippe, your ear!"

"It's nothing much, Maman. One of the thorny branches in the forest brushed against it," he lied.

"Come, let me clean the wound, it's bleeding severely," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Her eyes were pools of worry as they examined Philippe's wound, her face was pained.

Seeing the pitiful expression on his mother's face, a large lump rose to Philippe's throat. The pressure that was building up in his chest threatened to crush his ribs.

Maman had changed so much ever since he'd left, he could barely recognize her anymore. Age had robbed her of all her familiar features that he'd known and loved. His heart ached at the realization that the woman who stood before him was the one who had raised him. And then, he couldn't help it. Pulling his mother into a crushing hug, he broke down in tears.

*

That night, he sat by a flickering oil lamp on the only cot in the single-room shack, tapping his knuckles against the hollow wooden frame to the beat of the song his mother was humming as she made watery potato stew. She was on her haunches as she stirred the liquid in the rusting pot.

Philippe hadn't gotten to see Papa yet. Having gone to work at the bakery at sunrise, he hadn't returned. Maman had told Philippe that, if luck was on their side, he would slip some slices of bread into his pockets and bring it home for dinner.

He couldn't look at his mother without a wave of conflicting emotions crashing into him—joy at seeing her after so long, but sadness to see that she was not immune to the test of time.

She had only a worn blanket pulled over her cotton dress to shield her from the cold. When she spoke, her voice quivered like a little leaf in the wind.

The money he had been sending them over the years—nine livres a month—three-fourth of his wage-- had given them little reprieve. The situation was so bad that Maman had forced him to hand over his coat and his dagger an hour after his arrival; she'd marched right to the market despite his protests and had sold them for thirteen livres.

Never in any of their letters had his parents expressed that they were indeed this badly off. He'd known that they had had to cut corners, but it hadn't ever crossed his mind that they had to stretch their income this tightly. The crazed look that had clouded his mother's face when she had realized how much money the dagger and the coat would get them—it had thrown a wet blanket over his happiness at being back home.

They were scrambling for money, and Philippe didn't like it one bit.

But then, his thoughts took a sudden tangent-- Marie d'Aramitz. The enigma. A noblewoman masquerading as a peasant, being chased around in the forests by the cronies of who seemed to be one of Paris's most powerful men. He was intrigued by his encounter with her.

The afternoon's events befuddled him: What had she done to offend that Carpentier? Why had she been dressed like a peasant? But the most puzzling question of all: What had prompted him to comply with her bizarre request? Had it been mere lust for adventure? Or was it his frustration at the stalemate between him and the nobles at Bordeaux that had propelled him to plunge his life in danger just for the sake of some action?

He needed answers. About himself, about Marie.

"Maman, do you know Marie d'Aramitz?"

His mother stopped humming abruptly. "Who?"

"Marie d'Aramitz."

She stopped stirring. "How do you know about her? You talked to anyone on the way home?"

"Yes. Her."

His mother frowned into the pot. She pulled the wooden ladle from the vessel and laid it on a ragged cloth next to her. When she turned towards him, he'd known that it was the wrong thing to say.

His mother's face had drained of all color. Her eye twitched slightly—a sign, ever since his childhood, he'd known meant that she was worried.

"Oh, it wasn't much, Maman, I just asked her for the way home," Philippe said, his voice light. "Some minutes later, two armed men on horses came up to me and asked me if I'd seen d'Aramitz. I said that I was new to the area, so they offered me a description--which happened to be of the same woman I'd talked to some minutes back."

His mother's eyes grew smaller as she scrutinized him. "Did you tell them?"

"Of course," he lied casually, shrugging his shoulders. He knew his mother was searching him for a telltale sign.

A stutter, a bead of sweat, fidgeting hands, anything.

Little did she know, he'd outgrown those signs the five years he'd spent away from her.

"You lie smooth," Maman scoffed as she turned her back towards him.

His breath hitched. "Huh," he said blankly.

"You heard me," she replied as she started stirring the stew once again. "And mark my words, Philippe, keep marauding around with her and it'll be your neck under the blade."

He stiffened.

"H-How—," he began, but his mother cut him off.

"I'm your mother, Philippe. Of course I know when you lie to me."

Without offering an explanation and in a daze, Philippe stumbled off the cot and made his way to the door.

*

Dinner was a tense affair—his father hadn't changed over the past five years, regrettably. Philippe's fists were almost broken; he had had to keep them clenched tightly to prevent himself from hitting out at Philippe Fitzgerald Sr.

After his mother had accused him of lying to her and warned him about Marie earlier, he had attempted to storm off, only to find his father at the door, pulling off his boots.

It had turned out that Papa hadn't been able to sneak out some bread— he supposed that someone had sold him out because the supervisor had been keeping a particularly sharp eye trained on him all day. As he complained in his snide voice to Maman, hurling obscenities like the rocks he wished he could throw at the supervisor, he entered the house.

His father still looked at him down his pointed aristocratic nose, though he had to tilt his head to do so; the latter had grown up to be the taller one out of the two of them. The crinkles near his eyes hadn't transformed into ugly wrinkled folds of skin yet and his hair was still a midnight black, save for some ivory streaks which had been present even while Philippe had still lived in Paris. The demon that he called Papa was proving to be too hardy, even for Time.

But what was worst of all, his words were still drew more pain than wounds inflicted by the sharpest of swords.

"Boy," he had said gruffly, as they hugged quickly. His father's grip was strong on his back. Like he wished he could crush his son into dust.

"Papa," Philippe had nodded tersely as they pulled apart.

No more words had been exchanged, for the father had pushed past him, having decided that he must wash up before dinner.

As they sat down for dinner in a circle on the floor—for they couldn't afford more than one chair—and drank their stew in utter silence for three minutes, Papa spoke up.

"Boy," he drawled in an oily voice one would adopt with an obstinate child, staring into the contents of his bowl more lovingly than he had ever looked at Philippe. "Do you have something to explain to your parents?"

Philippe hated it when his father spoke of himself in third person. It meant that mockery was on the way.

"Yes, Papa," he grunted, turning to his mother, who was steadfastly avoiding his gaze. As he dipped his spoon into the bowl, the murky contents of the bowl seemed to stare back at him, just as mockingly as his father.

For what had Philippe thrown away his artistic ambitions, deciding to sweat it out in Bordeaux? His parents had nothing. This fact shattered his heart over and over again. In order to avoid his father's eyes, he glanced at the worn wooden walls of the shack that his family called their house. His heart sank even farther.

"Why did you lose your job?" Philippe's father enquired, poison in his words apparent even though he tried to pass it off as honey.

"I killed a man."

The sharp clang of metal echoed in the silence when Maman dropped her spoon and brought a fluttering hand to her breast hurt. The look she threw him--one that reminded him of a wounded puppy—it hurt worse than Papa's wide-eyed, disbelieving smirk.

"No wonder you didn't mention it in the letter," Philippe Fitzgerald Sr. scoffed. He  tried to sound accusing, but the shock was apparent in even his voice.

The letter in question had been the one Philippe had dispatched the day he had been thrown out of the Army. It had been merely three lines long, promising all explanations for when the family would be reunited.

The tension in the air was thicker than hung curd.

Philippe felt--if it was even possible--worse. Even his harshest critic hadn't expected this from him. The shame of it made him burn. His face felt hot. His hands shaking slightly, he spooned some of the frugal stew into his mouth to delay his response.

"I—I thought it would be better if I explained it in person," Philippe offered weakly after taking his time with the stew, his ears red under the harsh scrutiny of his mother.

She was a temperamental woman—one who blew up quite easily. She was watching him in silence—her severe gaze unwavering. He knew that under her calm exterior, she was a kettle on boil. She would, at any moment, lose her head.

"Explain, then," his mother said, harshly.

Philippe sighed. Even opening his mouth was a struggle. It was like his jaws were a hunting trap. They remained firmly clamped shut and the words that struggled to escape them sunk down to his throat, which had turned into a desert.

His parents stared at him, unrelenting. None of them said a word. And at that moment, Philippe realized that silence was the most deafening sound of all. It weighed down on him, sending a bolt of pain shooting down his skull, down his ribs, down his spine.

Finally, he broke free of the trap. His quivering lips parted, and all the words came tumbling, tripping over each other. They were not smooth, like he'd originally rehearsed.

"The man was J-Jacques Moreau. It was a d-drinking day in the army, someone had smuggled alcohol. We were all drunk. Moreau and I have—f-for the lack of a better word—problems. We were out of our s-senses, so words went flying, then fists went flying. I cannot recollect exactly how it went, but I was told it ended with my p-pistol down his throat."

He finished a shaky sigh.

It had been hard to get out, despite the nonchalant wording. The stuttering made it sound exactly what it was—rehearsed. He had practiced these words in his mind over and over again, but they fell flat when he said it. He had meant them to come out as passionate and regretful, and his little speech had been the farthest thing from it. 

His parents—his mother, in particular—stared at him as if he'd shoved the pistol in their throat, not in Moreau's.

"That's not you, Philippe," Maman exclaimed. "No! No, that is not my boy, he would never do that."

"Well, Adalene--" said Papa, moving over to put an arm around her.

Before he could possibly spout out any nasty words, Philippe said loudly, "It's killing me, Maman."

A small tear escaped from his eyes. "I'm sorry I was drunk out of my senses that day, I'm sorry that I had enough anger pent up in me to kill Moreau, and I'm more than sorry that I was the reason for his d-death. I die a little bit every time I think of it." Looking at his mother, he said, "However bad you're feeling, I'm feeling a thousand times worse."

"Luckily for Moreau and his family, that is sufficient consolation," his father commented drily.

His mother finally erupted. She broke down.

Philippe swore loudly and got up from the table violently, spilling stew all over it and himself. His mother let out a cry, "The stew—," but fell silent when Philippe swore again, his words directed at her time this time. Shaking the vegetables that had fallen on his shirt to the ground in disgust, he stomped out of the house, making sure to bang the door so hard behind him that it rattled.

He really enjoyed theatrics.

He heard his mother's mournful shriek but did not pay heed. It was a cold night and Philippe regretted not bringing his coat. With a wet shirt sticking to him and patched-up cotton trousers, he shivered in the winter night. Yet, a small smile tugged at his lips. The weight that had been lodged in his chest since that fateful day had disintegrated; he could breathe freely again.

He had been lying, and she hadn't found out.

The fib about Marie had been worth it, after all. Once he'd realised that his mother would henceforth believe that he lied casually after the little lie he'd fed her that evening, the heavy manner in which he'd admitted to killing Moreau hadn't been subjected to scrutiny.

Hugging himself tightly, cursing his life, his parents and Jacques Moreau in his head, he let himself into the small bar at the bend in the road. He found an old friend, Maurice Bernard, who he convinced to steal a drink for him. He needed to celebrate.

Thank you so very much for reading L'appel du vide! I hope that you enjoyed this chapter! I've tried to reveal gradual bits of information about Philippe, and I think that his relationship with his family is quite interesting! What are your thoughts?

This chapter is dedicated to SelenaGarcia784 for the time she took to review the crap I've spewed in this book until now. Thank you so very much for that wonderful insight, Selena! :)

Au revoir!