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It was All Souls’ Day, when Ture, looking after the goats in Santa Nicola, met his uncle, Zi Nunzio, Lia and Rosa’s father, whom everyone in San Basilio called Zi Duca.

A pleasant sun kissed the spring-like morning and warmed bones numb from the dreary season.

“God bless you, Zi Duca. What are you doing here?”

“We are picking some asparagus. Your cousin Rosa is close by.”

“And Lia isn’t here?” Ture asked.

“No, she’s been in a foul mood lately and stayed at home. If you go down the road, and you’ll find her under the brick wall.”

He didn’t even have time to make sense of Zi Duca’s answer when Rosa jumped out of a patch of broom.

In one hand, she was holding her apron full of wild asparagus, and in the other, an awl with which she was digging the earth. Her raven hair was in a braid, she wore a heavy pair of boots that were too big for her slender feet, and she had the dishevelled look of someone clinging to cliffs to tear up the precious vegetable with her bare hands.

She is beautiful!, Ture thought. Even more beautiful than that evening at the fountain.