I ate so quickly that a terrible stomachache began to spread its way across my belly. I leaned forward, hoping to hide from Nella’s ears the rumbles and growls coming from within me, wondering for a moment if perhaps she had poisoned me. It would, after all, be a convenient way to get rid of me. Panic rose in my chest as the pressure inside grew, but the feeling released with a belch.

Nella threw her head back in laughter, the first time I had seen real cheer in her eyes since the moment we met. “Feel better?” she asked.

I nodded, stifling my own giggle. “What are you doing?” I asked, wiping a bit of apple from my lip. She had taken hold of one of the beetle bags and now shook it forcefully.

“Stunning them,” she said, “or at least those that are still alive. We’ll pour them into this bucket first, and it’s not easy reining them in if a hundred angry beetles try to crawl out at once.”

I grabbed the other bag, mimicking her actions, and shook it with all my might. I could hear the bounce and fall of the insects inside the bag, and in truth, I felt a bit sorry for them.

“Now pour them in here.” She slid the bucket toward me with her foot. I carefully untied the strings at the top of my bag, gritted my teeth and opened it. I had not yet had a clear look inside the bag, and I dreaded what I might find.

I estimated half the beetles to be dead already—they lay there like pebbles, but with eyes and tiny legs—and the other half showed little resistance as I poured them out, their greenish-black bodies tumbling into the tin bucket. Nella poured her bag in next, then lifted the bucket and walked it to the hearth, setting it onto the roasting rack over the fire.

“Now you roast them? It is as simple as that?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Not yet. The heat of the fire will kill the remainder of them, but we cannot roast in this bucket, or we will find ourselves serving up little more than beetle stew.”

I cocked my head, puzzled. “Stew?”

“Their bodies have water inside them, just like you and me. Now, Eliza, you have worked in a kitchen. What would happen if you set a dozen fish into a small pan over the fire? Would the fish on the bottom be crispy and flaky, as your master might have liked?”

I shook my head, finally understanding. “No, it would be soggy and wet.”