In Gour Noir, an isolated valley cut off from the rest of the world, there live four siblings. Three brothers and one sister, who are united by an unfailing bond: Marc, who constantly reads in secret, in defiance of his father's wishes; Matthieu, who can hear trees thinking; Mabel, a wondrously savage and graceful beauty; and Luc, the tragic child, the idiot, undoubtedly the wisest of them all, who can speak to frogs, deer, and birds, and dreams of one day becoming one of them. Like their father and grandfather before them, they all work for Joyce the Tyrant, the adventurer, the cold-blooded beast of the Quarries and the Dam.
