The Devil's Fork

I was confronted with the invisible from a very early age.

In truth, throughout my childhood I was either the object or the witness of a number of unusual events.

But one of them left a particularly deep mark on me.

I was eight years old at the time and was riding my bike alone on a local country road. My parents, still very young and rather carefree, let me go out like that with complete freedom, no doubt figuring that nothing bad could possibly happen to me.

I didn't even have a helmet strapped on my head.

In their defense, it's true you hardly ever met anyone on that road. I had already taken it many times--morning, noon, or evening--without crossing paths with a single vehicle.

Until that May 14th. A Sunday.

I was used to enjoying the landscape while I pedaled. I liked looking at the wild grass on the untamed shoulders and, farther off, the shrubs, the cultivated fields stretching as far as the eye could see, the loose fences, the cattle, and the hay.

I always turned back at the same spot.

At that age everything seems oversized. The smallest ditch becomes a precipice, every stream looks like a river, and a road vanishing over the horizon is the end of the world.

Yet that day I decided to push a little farther.

I know today exactly how many kilometers I covered. I know precisely where I was. Still, I won't say any more, so as not to give sharp-eyed investigators the information they would need to identify me. Who I am doesn't matter.

What matters is what happened.

The road surface was in bad shape--bumpy, cracked, poorly paved--typical of the French country roads that small towns can't afford to maintain.

But I couldn't have cared less. I was free, alone in the world.

The air was cool, the sky low and overcast. I must have been working hard for a while, because the road had been climbing steadily. When I finally leveled out again, I picked up speed gradually, getting ready for what looked like a good downhill run.

And I wasn't disappointed.

I even had to brake, much to my regret, for fear of ending up on the shoulder with skinned knees.

That's when I spotted them.

At that point, the local road veered off to the right, continuing to snake through the countryside. And just before that, it was joined by a kind of rural track that faced me directly--narrower, and framed by greenery. The whole thing widened into an intersection where a sort of lightweight metal folding table stood proudly, fitted with two broad legs. It naturally reminded me of a camping table. So I wasn't surprised to see a motorhome parked on the left, at the bottom of the rural track, stopped as if at some imaginary stop sign.

But there was something far stranger.

Aside from the fact that the table was right in the middle of the road, a young girl was sitting on it. Brunette, long hair, probably around twelve years old. She was wearing a white short-sleeved top--a little bold--a pair of faded, patched blue denim shorts, and sneakers. To her right stood a little girl, six or seven years old, with medium-length, slightly wavy chestnut hair, dressed in a pretty white dress that stopped just above the knees. To her left, a boy of eight or nine, with very short, dark brown--almost black--hair, a bit chubby, and his belly showing.

Let's call them Ambre, Béatrice, and Cédric.

There was no sign of any parents. These kids were left to their own devices. I slowed down, passed them, and pulled over onto the shoulder. None of them was speaking.

The one on the left, leaning on her elbows, looked bored.

As for the second, she was staring straight ahead, swinging her feet in the air. The third, on the other hand, was busy with a strange little ritual. He was vigorously rubbing Béatrice's left thigh with the palm of his right hand, as if he were trying to dust her off. The one I took at the time for his older sister--because, to me, they were clearly siblings--still showed no reaction at all as I approached them.

At that moment, I turn my back to the bike and to a wide field.

I look around. The intersection is deserted. Not a sound, except the rubbing of Cédric's palm against skin and the fabric of the shorts. Ambre, for her part, remains silent, ignoring their little performance. I glance over toward the motorhome. Nothing to report.

So I address the oldest one, thoroughly intrigued.

"Are you waiting for someone?"

She finally looks my way.

But faced with her silence, I feel a little thrown. I can't really see myself talking to the little girl, and the kid, even though he's close to my age, doesn't give me much to work with. He keeps rubbing the young girl's thigh.

I decide to walk around the table.

Nothing out of the ordinary, at first glance. The motorhome is still parked, the stretch of local road I came in on is empty of any vehicles, and I spot a man in the field I'd had my back to. He's watching us. No--actually, he's spying on us, and he's moving closer, slowly.

I've got a bad feeling about this.

Having finished my circuit of the table, I'm now facing Béatrice, hesitating to tap one of her knees to snap her out of her silence. I don't know how much time passes after that, but suddenly I hear someone shouting behind me.

A strong, deep voice--a middle-aged man's.

"Get out of here! There's nobody here! Don't stay on the road!"

I look away from the three kids and turn around, thoroughly uncomfortable.

He doesn't look happy at all. I'm just a kid. An adult chewing me out always gets to me. On top of that, I don't know this guy. Did I do something wrong? Is he worried I'll get run over? I have no idea. Anyway, the farmer is waving his arms around.

He reaches me. I start stammering.

"I'm talking to the kids. They... They won't answer me."

"Those aren't kids, and they're not really here!"

I tell myself I must have misheard. I turn around again.

Of course, I'm about to set the man straight by pointing at the three of them with my finger, but the shock of it leaves me speechless. I'm this close to wetting my shorts. In front of me, there's no one left. The table is gone. The motorhome too.

They vanished. Like magic.

"But..."

I'm breathless.

Then he leans down to my level and grabs me by the arms. Each of his hands completely wraps around them. I figure I must have gone pale, because he immediately loosens his grip.

He stares at me, looking serious, then smiles.

"You... you're a true medium."

For my only answer, I give him the slip, grab my bike lying on the ground a few yards away, and take off, pedaling so hard I nearly throw the chain.

After a while, I realize my mistake.

I should have turned around. Instead, I'm getting farther from my starting point, where my parents are waiting for me. Sooner or later I'll have to make a U-turn and come back through that damn intersection. And what if the farmer is waiting for me there?

I prefer not to think about it.

A few minutes later, I ride the same stretch in the opposite direction. When I pass the spot again, there's not a living soul. Neither where the table, the children, and the motorhome had been just a little earlier, nor in the field the man had come from.

I never told my parents what had happened.

We stayed three more days, lodged in the nearest village, before finally hitting the road again and heading home, planning to come back soon, just as we already had several times before, under the spell of that uniquely charming stretch of countryside. In fact, just long enough to learn that the exact place where I'd had that incredible encounter had long been nicknamed "La fourche du Diable."

The expression was actually familiar to me.

I'd heard it the year before, but I hadn't realized it referred to a place name, or that in French an intersection was sometimes called a "fourche" (fork) because of its vague resemblance to the two-pronged tool.

Anyway, that crossroads had a history.

It figured on the long list of places, in this country and elsewhere, that had witnessed unexplained phenomena, unsettling events, and other curious apparitions.

I wasn't the first to have crossed paths with those "children."

Without knowing it, I had set down my first marker in the heart of what I now like to call the France of the Invisible. And I had added another word to my vocabulary: "medium."

It was never going to leave me again.