Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

1
St Peronne
October 1916
I was dreaming of food. Great sticks of crisp white baguettes, the crumb of the
bread a virginal white, still steaming from the oven; warm, ripe cheese, its
borders creeping towards the edge of the plate. Grapes and plums, stacked high
in bowls, dusky and fragrant, their scent filling the air. I was about to reach out
and take one, when my sister stopped me. ‘Get off,’ I murmured. ‘I’m hungry.’
‘Sophie. Wake up.’
I could taste that cheese. I was going to have a mouthful of the Reblochon,
smear it on to a hunk of that warm bread, then pop a grape into my mouth. I
could already taste the intense sweetness against its rich aroma.
But there it was, my sister’s hand on my wrist, stopping me. The plates were
fading, their scents disappearing. I reached out to them but they began to pop,
like soap bubbles.
‘Sophie.’
‘What?’
‘They have Aurélien!’
I turned on to my side and blinked. My sister was wearing a cotton bonnet, as
I was, to keep warm. Her face, even in the feeble light of her candle, was leached
of colour, her eyes wide with shock. ‘They have Aurélien. Downstairs.’
I stared at her. My mind began to clear. From below us came the sound of men
shouting, their voices bouncing off the stone courtyard, the hens, woken,
shrieking in their coop. In the thick dark, the air vibrated with some terrible