As she walked, the olive trees grew sparser and she saw where the land flattened out into the vines. Beyond that, squares of deep green lined up beside bone-dry summer browns, the patchwork pattern spreading as far as her eye could see. Luna stopped and sat a while to rest her foot, listening to the click of birds moving amongst the branches. On the ground beside her she saw a snake’s skin pressed flat against the earth, its owner long since gone. She picked it up but it was so delicate the tail end broke away and flew off in the breeze. She laid the remainder of the papery skin back into the thick of leaves and closed her eyes, leaning into a knobbly trunk. It wasn’t uncomfortable. Every now and then she heard distant voices on the breeze and was glad she had no part to play in this household. She just wanted to be left alone.

She must have dozed, for when she woke, her back was stiff and her left leg numb. A prickling burst forth in her foot and she cursed the intense tingling that made her wince as she walked back to the house.

That evening she ate in her room again. Elisabetta brought food to her door and Luna could tell that her concern was genuine, but she didn’t press Luna to join them at the table. There was much that was different in this household, Luna thought as she fell into bed so tired she knew she’d have a sounder night’s sleep. Sometime through her slumber she was woken by dull noises of activity. She lay and listened in a half-awake state to thuds and footfall, wondering who was busy in the room at the top of the tower whilst all the household slept. But the noise was not enough to keep her from her dreams, and soon enough she drifted off again.

*

With the dying colours of autumn came colder weather. The workers hurried through the yard hunched over against the tramontana that blew from the north and dropped the temperature to an icy chill. The Novara household began the busy activity of the season’s change. Luna watched the maids pull squirrel-lined cloaks from the storage trunks and shake them out to air. She watched the wooden shutters being attached to the outer windows and thereafter the rooms were bathed in a duller shade. Tapestries were hung against the cold stone walls in the reception rooms and in the professor’s chamber. The clatter of firewood being delivered became as regular a noise as the stores behind the kitchen being stocked.