Chap­ter IX unfolds in the qui­et and dense woods of Vil­lon-sur-Sarthe, France, where Ade­line finds her­self caught between the world she’s known and the mys­te­ri­ous unknown that now beck­ons. It’s the evening of July 29, 1714, and the air is thick with the whis­per of winds stir­ring the trees, as if the very earth beneath her feet feels like a place that no longer belongs to her. The peace­ful­ness of the sur­round­ings is sharply con­trast­ed by the unset­tling laugh­ter she hears, a sound that seems both out of place and too close for com­fort. This laugh­ter, dis­em­bod­ied and seem­ing­ly from nowhere, caus­es her to pause in her tracks as she is drawn toward it, uncer­tain of what lies ahead but unable to resist the pull. It’s a strange kind of mag­ic that lures her deep­er into the forest—a sense that some­thing momen­tous is about to hap­pen, but she can­not yet under­stand its true mean­ing.

As Ade­line ven­tures fur­ther into the woods, she’s met with the pres­ence of a shad­owy fig­ure who mate­ri­al­izes seem­ing­ly from thin air. The figure’s form shifts unnat­u­ral­ly, flick­er­ing between some­thing dis­tinct­ly human and some­thing otherworldly—its very being felt but not ful­ly grasped. Ini­tial­ly, Ade­line believes it might be some divine being, some­one she should avoid or beg for­give­ness from, but as the fig­ure speaks, its voice seems too allur­ing, too per­sua­sive to ignore. It offers her some­thing that could change the course of her life, tempt­ing her with pos­si­bil­i­ties that she can’t even begin to imag­ine. The figure’s pres­ence is mag­net­ic, draw­ing her in despite the fear that churns in her stom­ach. The figure’s emer­ald eyes seem to hold cen­turies of untold secrets, offer­ing not just words but a future shaped by choic­es she nev­er thought pos­si­ble.

With grow­ing trep­i­da­tion, Ade­line lis­tens as the fig­ure speaks, its voice res­onat­ing deeply with­in her, pulling her toward the idea of an exis­tence beyond the con­straints she has known. The fig­ure offers her a bar­gain: a life that would free her from the shack­les of the life soci­ety and her fam­i­ly had already planned for her. No more pre­or­dained mar­riage, no more lim­its on what she could do. It offers a kind of freedom—one where she would no longer be con­fined by the roles set by oth­ers but could shape her own des­tiny. Yet, the fig­ure is not mere­ly a wish granter. It is clear that some­thing far dark­er lurks beneath the sur­face of this offer. The free­dom it promis­es is not with­out con­se­quence, and its price is high. The fig­ure cau­tions her that such a request would require more than she might be will­ing to give, a rev­e­la­tion that shakes Adeline’s sense of cer­tain­ty about what she tru­ly wants.

As Ade­line lis­tens to the figure’s warn­ing, the weight of her own desires becomes clear­er. Her request for free­dom, for a life unfet­tered by the expec­ta­tions and lim­i­ta­tions placed on her, seems sim­ple enough in her mind, but she begins to real­ize that true freedom—without lim­its, with­out boundaries—is an impos­si­ble dream. The fig­ure rejects her plea, not out of mal­ice, but because such a desire can nev­er be ful­filled in the way she expects. To live with­out restric­tions, with­out lim­i­ta­tions, is not just a gift—it is a bur­den, one that no one, not even the fig­ure itself, can bear light­ly. In reject­ing her, the fig­ure reminds her that some desires are beyond the reach of even the most pow­er­ful beings, and the price for try­ing to ful­fill them would be too great. Ade­line, although still des­per­ate for free­dom, begins to under­stand that the cost of such a wish may be more than she can afford.

In the final moments of their inter­ac­tion, the fig­ure offers no solace, leav­ing her with a pro­found sense of loss. It fades into the shad­ows, as mys­te­ri­ous­ly as it appeared, leav­ing Ade­line stand­ing alone in the vast, silent woods, over­whelmed by the grav­i­ty of her real­iza­tion. Her plea for some­thing more, some­thing beyond the life she’s been giv­en, remains unan­swered, leav­ing her with a hol­low sense of despair. As the night deep­ens and the sounds of the for­est return to their usu­al rhythm, Ade­line is left to con­front the unde­ni­able truth that not all wish­es can be grant­ed. Her desire for an exis­tence free from the chains of her past has brought her face to face with the stark real­i­ty of lim­i­ta­tions, and the true cost of seek­ing some­thing so unat­tain­able.