The Laval Family are the sort of people a village leans on without noticing until the weight shifts. Before the fog made clocks feel dishonest, their shop's bell set a rhythm for the square: a quick trill for fishermen trading net cord, a soft chime for elders buying oil, a bright double-ring when children slipped in for twine to fly paper birds. Guillaume minded the counter with the patience of a man who treats fairness like a craft, weighing grain as if each handful were a small promise made visible. His daughters gave the place its voice. Elodie spoke for prices, for weather, for jokes that arrived half-formed; her hands also spoke, deft and precise, turning the world's bustle into shape for her younger sister. Louise, keen-eyed and quick to smile, returned the favor with looks that could carry whole sentences-teasing, thanks, the shared spark between sisters who know how to turn a thin day into something sufficient.
Their habits were village habits. On market mornings they opened early so fishermen could set out warm. In rain they lent hooks from a nail behind the door so coats would drip neatly outside. Visitors remember a threadbare stool near the counter where weary feet could rest while parcels were tied. If someone came short on coin, Guillaume wrote a careful note and tore it in half-one piece for the ledger, one for the customer-so the debt would feel like a shared thing. When tempers rose in other houses, the Lavals offered errands to put hands to use. When luck ran thin, they added a turn of twine for free, muttering that knots behave better when they feel appreciated.
Now the bell's music is off-beat. Elodie is missing, and with her gone the room sounds wrong even when it is full. Louise's hands move faster, trying to keep ahead of absence. Guillaume ties packages slowly, as if string might remember what words cannot reach. Customers hover at the threshold, unsure whether entering will help or hurt. The stool near the counter stands empty more often, and the ledger's torn halves wait together like lips that have forgotten how to smile. None of this is spectacle; the family refuses that. They do not invite pity, only decent company and useful tasks. They speak of stock first, then weather, then, if you prove capable of listening, of hope-that plain, stubborn thing that keeps bread rising in damp kitchens.
Rowan knows them by signs more than speeches: the thickness of a knot on a parcel tied for a shaking hand; the way Louise circles a word in the air until the right expression lands; the way Guillaume looks at the door not as if expecting a miracle but as if promising to be here when one arrives. In a season when the fog makes all rooms smaller, the Laval Family keep their door as open as they are able. They are not leaders of Gascar, but they are its hinge, and the village swings more gently when they are steady. Whatever hunts, listens, or merely wanders in the wood took something from them; the measure of Gascar will be how it helps them carry what remains.