Chap­ter I begins on a rainy July 29, 1914, in the small, somber vil­lage of Vil­lon-sur-Sarthe, where Addie Larue finds her­self reflect­ing on the immense pas­sage of time. Two hun­dred years have gone by since she made the fate­ful deal that would shape her exis­tence for­ev­er. As she walks through the vil­lage, the changes are unde­ni­able; few­er famil­iar sights greet her, though land­marks like the old church and the grave­yard remain large­ly unchanged, untouched by time’s relent­less march. Seek­ing shel­ter from the down­pour, she takes refuge at the church’s entrance before ven­tur­ing into the grave­yard. There, she pays a qui­et vis­it to her par­ents’ graves, plac­ing wild ros­es in their mem­o­ry, a small act of con­nec­tion to the past and her dear friend Estele, who had once been her clos­est com­pan­ion.

The weight of the years press­es on her as she moves through the grave­yard, but a shock soon halts her steps—what was once a strong, sym­bol­i­cal­ly impor­tant tree beside Estele’s grave has been destroyed. The tree had long stood as a memo­r­i­al, a con­nec­tion between her present and the mem­o­ry of Estele, but now it’s gone. Over­come by a deep sense of loss, Addie is forced to con­front the inescapable truth: no mat­ter how deeply she holds onto mem­o­ries, time erodes all things, and the per­ma­nence she yearns for is just an illu­sion. The sight of the ruined tree ampli­fies the futil­i­ty of her eter­nal strug­gle against time and change, and as if sum­moned by her sor­row, Luc—the mys­te­ri­ous fig­ure behind her dark deal—appears. His pres­ence, both famil­iar and unset­tling, offers a strange form of com­fort, his dark influ­ence mark­ing the con­tin­u­a­tion of their entan­gled rela­tion­ship. With him stand­ing by her side, the real­i­ty of their pact is under­scored once more.

In a stark con­trast to the qui­etude of Vil­lon-sur-Sarthe, Paris rep­re­sents a world that has evolved, expand­ed, and thrived in ways that Addie can­not relate to. Here, amidst the bustling city, Addie and Luc share a moment of rare con­nec­tion over a glass of wine. Their con­ver­sa­tion turns intro­spec­tive, as Luc acknowl­edges the lone­li­ness that ties them both togeth­er, and Addie rec­og­nizes the qui­et, unno­ticed pres­ence he has always main­tained in her life. As they reflect on the com­plex­i­ty of their bond, Luc presents her with a wood­en ring, a sym­bol of her deal with him—something she had believed lost to time. The ring, a prod­uct of her cre­ation, car­ries with it lay­ers of mean­ing and sig­nif­i­cance, show­ing that her actions and cre­ations, even in the face of time’s pas­sage, have more per­ma­nence than she ever real­ized. This moment reshapes Addie’s under­stand­ing of her own exis­tence, chal­leng­ing her belief in the tran­sience of life and loss. Through Luc’s ges­ture, she begins to ques­tion the val­ue of what she has cre­at­ed and how it ties into the eter­nal strug­gle she faces between per­ma­nence and the fleet­ing nature of human expe­ri­ence. The ring, a small yet pow­er­ful sym­bol, draws atten­tion to the para­dox at the heart of her existence—caught between the weight of immor­tal­i­ty and the ephemer­al beau­ty of her fleet­ing mem­o­ries.

Addie’s emo­tion­al jour­ney in this chap­ter high­lights the con­trast between her past and present, illus­trat­ing the dif­fi­cul­ty of liv­ing with the con­se­quences of a deal that con­tin­ues to shape her exis­tence. The loss of the tree beside Estele’s grave, along with Luc’s reap­pear­ance, forces her to con­front the deep­er truths about time, mem­o­ry, and the per­son­al con­nec­tions that shape her life. It also under­scores the emo­tion­al com­plex­i­ty of her rela­tion­ship with Luc, a fig­ure who, despite being tied to her great­est loss, also offers moments of strange com­pan­ion­ship. Through her reflec­tion on these events, the chap­ter paints a poignant pic­ture of Addie’s strug­gle with the pas­sage of time, loss, and the heavy, unyield­ing pres­ence of her pact, which defines the nature of her exis­tence.