Free Ardor by Lily Prior

squinty eyes flashed between him and Fernanda Ponderosa, enjoying the moment.
    Fernanda Ponderosa watched him wipe the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, leaving a smear of crimson blood there that made him look even more dangerous.
    â€œI’ll stay until your brother comes back,” she said softly.
    He could never have imagined her voice, would never have believed it real. He would always remember the thrill of hearing it for the first time. A bolt of lightning seared through him and down to his crotch. He willed it to stay still.
    â€œMy brother isn’t coming back,” he managed to answer, but barely.
    His look dared her to contradict him, but she knew Fidelio would return. Primo Castorini’s throat was sun-baked sand. Fernanda Ponderosa felt a splash of hot water against her face as Maria Calenda threw a steaming bucketload over the pig, then started to scrape at its bristles with a hook.
    â€œI’ll come this afternoon,” she said, “to help out.”
    â€œI’ll be disappointed if you don’t,” he said slowly, comingcloser. He was speaking now in little more than a whisper that made Maria Calenda pause in her scraping to extend her ears.
    Fernanda Ponderosa turned her back and walked away. The swaying of her hips was the curve of a wave lapping on a beach. A man who had never seen the ocean, he wanted to lie down and drown himself in it. He watched her cross the field until she disappeared from view. When he returned to his work on the carcass, the expression on his face made Maria Calenda cackle again. The stranger would need to watch out.

CHAPTER FOUR
    I t was a beautiful day, the first in May, and already it was unseasonably hot. Summer had come overnight to the region, but nobody could have predicted what the weather had in store for us later on.
    In the hedgerows flowers bloomed furiously. The air was overstuffed with their rich perfume and with the sound of insects, fat bees buzzing as they collected their pollen, cicadas singing, busy flies zubbing. Sancio, the daft mule of the Castorini family, was in his meadow, braying loudly. To think that once I had considered allowing him into my heart! The mooing of cows was jubilant, like a church choir. Chickens clucked, goats chattered, and sheep chomped. The earth teemed with life, and up in the blue sky that looked freshly washed, swallows were darting in arcs and circles.
    Fernanda Ponderosa arrived in the town, where the streets were full of people discussing the strange phenomenon of the singing the previous night.
    Gerberto Nicoletto was demanding compensation from theMinistry of Agriculture on account of his melons: they had come up overnight, monstrously big, and warped into embarrassing shapes.
    Filiberto Carofalo was complaining that his goats had all given green milk.
    Amelberga Fidotti claimed her fountain was spouting olive oil.
    Earlier in the day a deputation had trudged up the mountain to consult the hermit, Neddo, but no reassurance could be gotten from him: he seemed to have gone into a deep trance and would answer no questions. Although the citizens had waited patiently for him to speak and had held under his nose their choice offerings of meat, eggs, bread, and woolen socks, the savant remained mute, and after several hours of intense scrutiny of the bearded sage, the citizens trudged away again no wiser than when they had come.
    After that disappointment they approached Speranza Patti, who was the closest thing the town had to a scholar. She had examined several books in the library and failed to come up with an explanation. This, however, didn’t stop her inventing one.
    Sebastiano Monfregola had set up a stool and was cutting hair in the street as he did on festivals. When Fernanda Ponderosa squeezed her way past him, he was so struck by her resemblance to her dead sister that he almost cut the ear off Franco Laudato with the blade of the razor.
    Fernanda Ponderosa knew the magical