21 ________________ The Black ToothBLANCHE GAZED AT THE SNOWY PEAKS OVER HER. The dancers remained aloof and distant. She had run too long, her dead nerves preventing her to feel the ache in her tendons… But her shoulders and arms screamed with pain, forcing her to take a pause, perched on a rocky crest. A cry echoed on the mountain flank, carried by the wind. A familiar voice, not belonging here. She searched the slope below her. A form moved, displacing stones. Surprise froze her on the flat rock, then… an overwhelming joy cast off her weariness. “Daddy!” Blanche skipped from her perch. In a few gazelle leaps, she landed in front of her exhausted father. His hair and beard gray with dust, Romain cried out his relief, before seizing his daughter in a bear embrace that would have

