Summary
In a hushed Québecois manor where the snow seems to eavesdrop on candlelit whispers, Louis Racine—heir to a fortune as brittle as the ice on the St. Lawrence—clutches two ticking bombs: a contested testament that could vaporize his gilded life, and a degenerative curse that warps bone and sinew into a gargoyle’s mask. While his wife, the velvet-voiced Madelinette, fills the frost-rimmed halls with arias that taste of vanilla and absinthe, Louis prowls the corridors like a man negotiating with shadows, convinced that love itself will curdle if the bankbook thins. Enter the spectral possibility of a second will—ink that might name Pierre Dales, the taciturn notary’s clerk, as the true blood heir—and suddenly every chandelier flickers like a jury. Louis, cornered by time and his own mutinous body, slips from panic into Faustian calculus: one well-placed blade, one frozen river, one convenient avalanche, and Madelinette’s luminous hand need never know the poverty of a pawnshop ring. Yet each murderous rehearsal leaves microscopic cracks in the looking-glass; his reflection grows antlers, vertebrae buckle like ship timbers, and the manor’s portraits seem to smirk. When at last he lures Pierre to the titular lane—a snow-buried cart road that dead-ends against granite—Louis discovers the final irony: the will was a bluff, the disease a misdiagnosis, and the only irreversible deformity the gnarled conscience he now must drag, like a corpse chained to his ankle, back to a marriage whose music has already fallen silent.
Synopsis
Louis Racine has inherited great wealth and married famed singer Madelinette, whom he passionately loves. But Louis carries a pair of secrets: his wealth may be taken from him if a contradictory will is found, and his health is deteriorating from a disease which will slowly turn him into a grotesquely deformed figure. Terrified that the truth will come out, Louis dares anything to prevent the loss of his riches and true love... even if it means he must kill the man who might be the rightful inheritor.
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