Through the month of August, each night became a repeat of the same relentless oven-hot discomfort. Luna longed for the cooler autumn temperatures to sweep through the city on the winds from the hills but they were still weeks away. Maria was awake and tossing in the bed covers. Luna took her hand and the girls walked down the stairs and through the corridor to the garden, nightdresses hanging listlessly against their hot skin.

They lay in the grass, sprawled like lizards baking. Luna hoped the change would settle Maria. Their conversation was peppered by the noise of the night carts rumbling in the streets beyond the garden wall. The girls covered their noses against the smell of heated sewer water, despite the roses. The wealthy families of Florence might have left for their country villas but most of the city still sweated through each day and night.

‘When will Papa tell us about his trip?’ Luna asked to the sky above. There was something freeing to talk so, without scrutiny nor care for who heard when there was only Maria beside her. The silence that followed was welcome. She expected no answer and so the question did not beg for one.

Luna felt rather than saw Maria sit up. She was reluctant to move from where she lay with the cool feel of the grass, damp with night dew, against her back and the view of the stars above. She was looking for the Virgo maiden again, but she heard Maria digging and stamping her feet into the earth.

‘Stop that! You’ll ruin the grass,’ Luna said without looking over.

‘What do you care?’ Maria grunted from the effort as she dug up clods of grass. A lump of soil flew across the garden and crumpled into specks of dirt as it thudded against the low wall of the pond.

Luna sat up. Maria was hunched over and rigid with a bursting energy that she was directing through her feet. She began to rip at the grass with her hands.

‘Are you tired?’ Luna asked, speaking softly and gently, as she’d learnt this helped Maria’s melancholia. She’d told herself to never be surprised at the fickleness of the dark bile when it rose in Maria, but this time it had taken her unawares. She curled her arm around her sister’s shoulder. ‘Let’s go back to bed,’ she suggested, but Maria pulled away and shook herself as though she’d a mouse caught in her nightdress. She shuffled on the grass so there was a distance between them and wrapped her arms around her knees bent to her chest. Then she dropped her chin to rest upon her knees.

‘What else is going to happen?’ she said angrily.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Luna replied, wary of the rawness in Maria’s tone.