In July 1764, Addie returns to Villon-sur-Sarthe and walks to the village churchyard. She finds her father Jean LaRue’s grave and is jolted by the date of his death: 1714, the same year Addie fled into the woods and made her bargain. Standing among family plots that map a mortal life from birth to burial, Addie feels both the old grief and a sharper fear of forgetting, as her pre-curse memories of her parents and her childhood begin to blur while her cursed centuries remain unnaturally clear.

Addie searches the graves until she finds Estele Magritte’s stone, dated 1642–1719. Upset that Estele has been buried under a church cross instead of in the woods or her garden, Addie takes a trowel from a shed and goes into the trees. She digs up a small sapling and plants it over Estele’s grave, trusting that anyone who notices will quickly forget, and hoping the growing tree might make someone think of older gods again.

As the church bells call the villagers to Mass, Addie watches familiar descendants and neighbors file past, aware that they are the last living ties to her first life and that they will soon be buried in the same narrow patch of ground. She then goes to Estele’s hut at the forest’s edge, now abandoned and collapsing, its garden overrun as the woods creep closer each year.

Inside, Addie sees the space stripped of Estele’s belongings and assumes the village claimed them after Estele’s death. Addie harvests what she can from the wild garden and works to light and maintain a hearth fire, reflecting on the limits and loopholes of her curse: Addie cannot make or break things, but Addie can steal and use them, and while Addie cannot start a fire, Addie can keep one going once it catches.

Luc appears without warning and needles Addie about returning “where you started,” then turns cruelly to Estele, accusing Addie of selfishly abandoning the old woman to die alone. When Addie strikes Luc, Luc retaliates by flooding Addie with pain and forcing Addie’s body to briefly age and fail, then offers relief and a peaceful death beneath a tree if Addie will surrender. Addie refuses and tells Luc to go to Hell; Luc vanishes, the pain lifts, and Addie finds the carefully tended fire extinguished, leaving Addie to curl up in the hut and cling to the memory of Estele’s presence and voice.