The crow lay by the footpath, its crumpled feathers streaked with purple and its beak wide open. There was blood staining the ground beneath its swollen belly, but even in that damp afternoon it had already dried up. Who knew how long the poor creature had been there, one blank eyeball pointing toward a sky that promised snow, and the other eye lost entirely.

Mathias had been crouching over it for a while. He wondered whether the fleas had abandoned their host the moment its heart had stopped beating; he’d heard a hunter talk about that once, and the thought had tormented him for some time. It was a detail that seemed both fascinating and ominous.

He touched the crow with the tip of his finger. It was an older specimen. He could tell from its beak, which was bald and pale. Its legs had gone stiff, and its sturdy talons gripped thin air.

He quickly wiped his gloves on his trousers. His father would have smacked him if he’d found out. He’d often caught his son observing the carcasses of small animals in the garden or in the pine grove behind their house, and he’d berated him for it, calling him a word Mathias hadn’t heard before, but which sounded quite ugly. He’d looked it up in the dictionary. He couldn’t remember what it meant, but it had something to do with madness.

Mathias wanted to be a veterinarian when he grew up, and he’d take any chance to learn something. His grandfather had once told him that observing did half the job of learning. The rest would come so long as you tried and tried again. The boy stood up, his eyes still fixed on the animal. At first he wanted to bury it, but then he thought it might be better this way; nature was carnivorous and would appreciate those remains. They would not go to waste.

He heard the church bells in the town ring twice, followed by a third half-chime. It was getting late; the others were waiting for him in their secret place.

He set out along the frozen path. That morning, the village of Travenì had woken up to a coating of snow. It was only a light dusting and had melted away too fast, but it bode well for the forthcoming skiing season.

He reached the bluff that rose near the village. The memorial to the fallen soldiers of the Napoleonic wars soared through the low woodland of spruce and pine trees: a bronze grenadier scowling as he surveyed the horizon, his long mustache curling upwards. A blue scarf fluttered from the tip of his bayonet, indicating that a member of their group had already gotten there and climbed all the way up the statue to set up their signal.