He gave his promise.

I released my hold on him.

And the madness set in.

Encore

The Songbird’s Overture

My voice cut off abruptly with a loud sneeze, and I waved away the cloud of dust hanging in front of my face. “Sorry about that,” I said to the old pig watching me from where she lay in the straw. “Shall I try the song again?”

“Please spare us the torture!”

I jumped, then saw my sister’s eyes peering between the wooden slats of the stall. “Josette!”

She oinked like a pig. “Save us from her caterwauling! She sounds worse than an angry tomcat.”

“I do not!”

“Do!” She shrieked with laughter and bolted out of the barn.

“I don’t,” I said to the pig, but she only emitted a world-weary sigh and began chewing absently on a cob of corn. Her brood squirmed around her stomach, each of them fighting for a choice spot. There was one in particular who bullied the rest, knocking his siblings around, and sending the runt toppling until I was sure he didn’t know up from down.

Setting aside my pitchfork, I picked up the big piglet, ignoring his squeals of protest. Turning him round so we were face to face, I fixed him with a dark look. “No one likes a bully.”

He shrieked in indignation, jerking his little form from side to side in an attempt to escape back to his gluttony. I focused intently on his pink face. “Sshhh.”

The pig went silent, dark eyes locked on mine with an almost eerie focus. It gave me the shivers, so I hugged him to my chest and watched as his tiny sibling found a spot and started suckling. My father would say it was wasted effort, but being on the runty side myself, I was sympathetic to the little pig’s plight. I hummed softly to the animals, not quite ready to invite my sister’s mockery with another song.

My ears caught the faint jingle of a harness and the stomp of hooves against dirt, the sounds making my stomach clench with excitement. She was here! With the piglet still in my arms, I ran to the barn door, eyes watering from the brightness as I peered down the lane.

“Cécile, put that pig back in its pen and get to work. Those stalls aren’t going to muck themselves.”

I stiffened, only just catching sight of my father before he led the plow horse around the corner to the fields. The uncharacteristic frown on his face rendered him almost unrecognizable, and he’d been short with everyone since the moment he came down for breakfast. Even though I didn’t entirely understand why, I wasn’t fool enough not to realize what had put a bee in his bonnet. Or, rather, who.

Returning the piglet to his mother, I retrieved my pitchfork and started work on another stall. I was barely halfway through when my fingers began to twitch, finding their way to my pocket to check for the crinkle of paper after each load I dumped into the wheelbarrow. When I couldn’t stand it any more, I leaned out to make sure my father wasn’t lurking around the corner, then pulled out the piece of parchment. The creases where it was folded were starting to become worn and fuzzy, and it was a bit stained from my grimy fingers.