Joseph crushed the last wild grape beneath his heel, its crimson juice bleeding into the clay path.
Dawn mist revealed twin trails stretching from the mill to Chavain estate's low wall—serrated boot prints on the left, diamond-shaped horseshoe impressions on the right.
"Ever seen footprints walk backwards?"
The carpenter lifted a snail shell fragment. Sunlight filtering through its spiral grooves cast undulating patterns on the stone wall, making the mortar lines appear to writhe.
Emilie paused before the wine cellar's third pillar.
Dried blood smears on damp bricks had oxidized into rust-colored constellations. As she pressed her brass astrolabe against the wall, its shadowy graduations aligned with the stains to form Orion's Belt—a discovery less thrilling when noticing the translucent rootlets seeping from mortar cracks.
"Grafting sprouts." She snapped a rootlet, its bitter tang exploding on her tongue—the telltale flavor of black rot infection, impossible during drought season.
A crash echoed above.
In the attic storeroom, Louis stared at shattered pottery—an accidental nudge had toppled a jar bearing the caduceus symbol. Brown powder swirled across floorboards, forming strange concentric patterns in the grooves.
"Lightning-strike soil from 1902."
Emilie's voice carried up the stairs.
"Grandfather said it contains vaporized vine particles."
Louis' fingers brushed the oak cask's grain. Mold-etched patterns suddenly writhed—visions of torch-bearing workers, storm-lit vineyards burning to skeletal remains.
Behind the smithy, Joseph probed a blood-crusted horseshoe nail.
Wedged in its cross-shaped groove lay a bilberry leaf—only found near the mill's west ditch. When he smeared the nail's residue onto pinewood, the grain reshaped into child-sized handprints.
As the constable leaned closer, Joseph rotated the board. Sunlight transformed the prints into vine tendrils. "Heard of livingwood syndrome?"
The carpenter flicked wood shavings with his blade.
"Strikers pumped mercury into roots forty years back. Their palm lines turned... arboreal."
Noonday heat rippled over the vineyard. Emilie knelt where they'd found Louis, her astrolabe revealing metallic glints in soil.
Three verdigris-caked Roman coins emerged—one depicting a grape-clustered faun.
"Ancient grafting tools."
Louis held up a corroded blade, its edge stained with oxidized juice.
"Father's forge... melted similar relics."
Their simultaneous touch dislodged the faun's eye—an amber-encased grape seed.
Emilie's tongue flooded with black rot bitterness laced with gunpowder tang.
At twilight, Joseph lit the seventh candle in the mill cellar. Flickering light exposed fresh gouges—parallel grooves dragging from wine press to air vent, as if clawed hooves had scraped stone.
He dripped candle wax into the channels, mixing in crushed basil and smithy blood-scabs.
The final droplet hardened. A faint cracking echoed through walls—seeds stirring in stone womb. Joseph opened his 1920 pocketwatch, its inner case bearing Madeleine's final inscription: When twin moons dance in the seventh flame, the graft shall bloom in rock's embrace.
His breath crystallized in candlelight. Emerald shoots protruded from mortar, their rapid keratinization forming knobby vine joints.
A torn shirt strip meant to swaddle the stone birthed shredding sounds—the mineral vines were consuming cotton fibers.
"More witchcraft?" The constable's oil lamp revealed dust motes suddenly aligning like compass needles.
Joseph turned, his shadow merging with the wrapped wall. The distorted silhouette showed 1902 strikers—flaming torches, blazing trellises, nooses swaying from charred vines.
"Common efflorescence." He scraped stone flakes.
"Sandstone mimics vines when damp. The abbey crypt..."
The constable crushed a crystal, releasing vinegared wine fumes. As he bent closer, Joseph snuffed the candle. Phosphorescent trails spiraled across walls, coalescing into constellations on Madeleine's watch face.
Under moonlit northern slopes, Emilie charted the coin site while Louis carved a faun statuette.
He noticed luminous trails on her neck—wine tears clinging to crystal.
"Hold still." His fingers brushed skin textured like oak grain. Emilie whirled, her astrolabe's edge slicing his hand.
Their mingling blood hit the amber seed. The millennia-old capsule split, revealing crimson endosperm. The ground shuddered as sulfurous water erupted from their excavation pit.
"Roman irrigation tunnels!"
Emilie recoiled with her tools.
"The acidity will—"
Louis' half-carved faun tumbled into the spring. Water-swollen clay expanded into life-sized proportions, vacant eye sockets sprouting grape tendrils.
At 3 AM, Joseph finally deciphered the cellar's whispering stones. When watch hands aligned with the seventh candle's shadow, the wall spoke clear:
"Le greffon exige les mémoires de sang et de flamme."
The carpenter's blade drew blood across his palm. Smearing it over 1902's soil sample, he witnessed young Madeleine scattering silver dust into lightning-scarred roots, her rain-diluted warning echoing across decades:
"When Roman blood stirs beneath—"
A thunderous crash above. Joseph hid the evidence as a constable's button rolled downstairs, its rim dusted with glowing mineral powder.
Dawn found the mud-caked teens hiding behind fermentation vats. Emilie mapped subterranean currents while Louis studied his palm—the healed cut now bore microscopic vine scarring.
"Look."
Emilie's astrolabe caught sunrise, projecting hexagonal honeycomb patterns over the spring—ancient pH-balancing structures.
She froze as Louis' pinecone pendant trembled autonomously.
Joseph's low whistle resonated from the cellar depths, its melody mirroring the blacksmith's beating-song—except each note made Louis' scar-vines grow. When Emilie gripped his wrist, they shared the vision: bioluminescent tendrils strangling the pocketwatch, silver grape blossoms falling from Madeleine's fingertips.