She found the chicken coop in a tumbledown hut whilst walking one day beyond the manicured gardens behind the north side of the house. She followed the sound of hens past the main house, behind the pig pens and through an unkempt vegetable garden that had been left fallow so long the rosemary bushes were wild willowy things and the broadbean vines grew tall as the rusted pitchforks forgotten against the rocky wall. Luna picked her way over a clump of wind-dropped persimmons rotting in a cushion of mud and bracken, flicking at the grasses with her stick, and a sadness came over her for this neglected garden. The warble of a cock sounded and repeated unremittingly. Luna walked over to where the grass was beaten and crushed by regular use, then to where the chickens scattered at the sight of her. The wind pushed the hens into one another with force and sent the dust swirling. She opened the gate and stepped into the small yard, listening to the soft noises of the hens inside the hutch. It calmed her. The rooster was strutting atop a beam. He crowed rudely when he saw her and flew down into the afternoon light. This was his home and she an intruder. Luna looked through to where most of the hens were roosting out of the weather. There were only three still sitting; the rest flapped madly around the enclosed space. Luna waved her arms to shoo them off. One hen would not shift and her instinct to stay on the nest made Luna pause. She crouched down. The hen eyed her then flew over her head so close she felt the wind off its feathers brush her cheek. It made Luna step away nervously, for fear of a snake, but when she bent slowly towards the nest there was only an egg in the straw where the hen had sat. Luna rolled it around in her palm. The warmth of it was comforting. She thought of the many times she’d watched Maria scratch patterns in an egg. Why had her sister never been allowed to rage and shout? Pippo was praised for being boisterous but Maria’s passion was a curse. What good had come from pushing down her emotions? The egg sat neatly in her palm. She’d taken care of Maria as her step-mamma had desired when really she’d colluded in turning her sister into a meeker version of herself, a marriage-worthy Maria.

She placed the egg carefully back into the nest then walked out into a mistral that carried the bite of winter in its touch. The hens scattered. It was later than she’d realised and she turned to the path back to the house. She burrowed her head into the collar of her cloak, Maria’s spirit so close she felt her neck prickle.