“Seventy-four,” I heard Nella say from behind me, her feet crunching on the hay beneath us. “And you?”

“Twenty-eight,” I replied. I had counted diligently, repeating the number in my head, lest I forget and be forced to reach in and count the crunchy bugs again.

“Ah! We’re finished then, and with two to spare.” She helped me to my feet, for my knees were sore and my hands raw.

We began to walk toward the road when I grasped her arm, distress warming me in an instant. “There will be no coaches running this late,” I gasped. “We do not have to walk all the way back, do we?” I could not do it, not for anything.

“You have two perfectly good legs, don’t you?” she replied, but at the sight of my miserable expression, she broke into a smile. “Oh, don’t despair. We will rest over there, in that shed. It’s quite warm, in fact, and perfectly quiet. We will take the first coach in the morning.”

Trespassing seemed a worse offense than harvesting deadly beetles, but I followed Nella willingly—excitedly, even, for I so desperately wanted to rest—as we went through an unlocked door into the wooden shed that was, as she had promised, warm, dark and quiet. It reminded me of the barn at home in the country, and I cringed at the thought of what my mother would say to me if she saw me now, awake in the middle of the night with a bag of deadly bugs in my hand.

It took my eyes several moments to adjust, but eventually I could make out a wheelbarrow at the far end of the structure and, closer toward us, an assortment of tools for tending a field. Along the wall to our right, several haystacks were pushed neatly against one another. It was here that Nella stepped forward, nestling herself against one of the stacks.

“It’s warmest here,” she urged, “and if you pile up a bit of hay on the ground, it makes a decent bed. Watch out for the mice, though. They like it here as much as we do.”

Looking back at the door, fearing that some angry grounds owner might come chasing after us, I reluctantly followed Nella and made my own spot. She sat across from me, our feet almost touching, then pulled a small bundle from underneath her coat and unwrapped a loaf of bread, a bit of cheese and a leather canteen of what I assumed to be water. The moment she handed it to me, I realized how desperately thirsty I was. As I drank, the beetles in the bag rustled next to me.

“Have as much as you want,” she said. “There’s a barrel behind this shed, full of rainwater.” I realized that not only had she used the shed previously for shelter, but she had, apparently, explored the grounds for other resources.