Every twenty-fourth of December, the village of Fontclaire held the lantern vigilAn evening spent together late at night, to celebrate or to tell stories.. Everyone came out into the night with a paper lantern, and they walked together up to the old chapelA very small church, often standing a little away from the village. at the top of the path.
It made a long line of little lights climbing through the dark. From far away it looked like a necklace laid across the hill.
But that year, barely a minute after setting off, a gust of wind swept down the street. Pfff. Every lantern went out at the same instant, from one end of the village to the other.
The lanterns were made all through the day of the twenty-fourth. The children glued the paper, the grown-ups fitted the wooden sticks, and the baker lent his flour paste, which smells of warm bread and holds better than anything.
There was a great silence, then a few nervous laughs, then nothing at all. Without the lanterns the path turned black as ink, and nobody felt like climbing it.
“Let's go home,” said someone. “Much safer,” said another. People were already turning back when little Adèle raised one finger towards the top of the hill.
“Look. There's one left.” Right at the top, tiny, a light was still shining. It did not tremble, it did not flicker. It was waiting.
The wind, meanwhile, had gone as fast as it came. That was the most annoying part: there was not a breath of air left, not one reason to go home, and yet nobody moved.
Adèle set off first, her unlit lantern in her hand. Nobody held her back, because everyone was far too busy staring. Then her father followed, then the baker, then all the others.
Arriving at the top, out of breath, they saw that the light was not a lantern at all. It was a horn. One long white horn, on the forehead of a unicorn sitting in the snow, as calm as if she had been waiting forever.
Adèle stepped forward and held out her lantern. The unicorn tilted her head and touched the wickThe small thread in the middle of a candle, the part that catches fire. with the tip of her horn. The little flame sprang back at once, yellower and rounder than before.
Nobody said anything for a long while. All you could hear was the snow creaking under boots and the breath of the unicorn, making small white clouds in front of her nostrils.
So each of them came forward in turn, one after another. A hundred lanterns were relit one by one from a single horn, and the unicorn never moved from her place.
Then she stood, shook the snow from her back and walked down towards the forest without looking round. The light of her horn became a dot, and then nothing.
It took some time, because there were many of them and they went up one at a time, without pushing. The smallest ones went first. Not one person thought to object.
People still tell the story of the vigilAn evening spent together late at night, to celebrate or to tell stories. when every lantern went out. They often forget the ending: it was not the unicorn who saved the evening, it was Adèle, who raised one finger and climbed first into the dark.
The end, sweet dreams.
