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She removed her hands from the trunk and smiled at him, tucking something back into her purse. “You must look up, not down. See in the branches? On the left, there are apricots, on the right are figs. Climb and gather as much as you can.”

“But—how could they both grow on the same tree?”

Ginevra shrugged. “Trees do what they want,” she said, and then began to pluck figs from the low-hanging boughs. They filled their bags and walked until dusk, when they came upon a dry haystack to sleep in just as Piero began to feel tired.

On the third day, there were dark clouds that made the loose hairs on their heads stand out straight. They left their haystack for the safety of a small thatched hut, doors open and black, both afraid of what they would see inside. At the doorway, they jumped at eyes that gleamed at them from a dark corner, like a cat’s at night. But the eyes were human—two boys a little older than Piero. One clutched a brand-new baby. Piero stood shy in the doorway but Ginevra walked right in.

“Is it only the three of you left here?” she asked.

The taller boy nodded. “Can you help our sister?” He held out the listless baby.

Ginevra took the infant. “Who has been feeding her?” she asked them gently.

The smaller one began to cry. “We have a goat. But she has given no milk since yesterday.” He nodded to the other side of the room.

Ginevra turned and watched a goat lick salt out of the earthen walls. To the boys, she said: “Go into the fields and bring me back a horn. I saw a dead buffalo out there. Quickly, before the storm starts. Piero will help you.”

But Piero lingered in the doorway. He didn’t like the idea of leaving his traveling companion alone, after he had gone through all that trouble to fetch her. He watched quietly as Ginevra ran back and forth after the goat, who leaped easily away from her grasping hands. The swaddled baby lay on a single bed, staring at the roof beams.

“What are you doing?” Piero asked eventually.

She jumped at his voice. “I am trying to catch this goat!”

“Why? The boy said she is dry.”

“Piero, please. Just, help me catch this damned goat and hold her still. I will explain to you later.”

So Piero helped her and pinned the goat in a corner while Ginevra pulled from her purse a smooth white disk, opaque and shiny like a tooth. She offered it to the goat, who considered it a moment and then took it on her pointed tongue and swallowed it. The animal shook Piero free and began to pace back and forth, bleating.

Ginevra sighed with relief. “Piero, go ask the boys for a bucket.”

“Why?”

“So we can milk this poor goat! Don’t you hear her? She’s ready to burst.”

Piero turned to the goat and then back to Ginevra, who had somehow gotten a fire started in the few moments he looked away.

“Bucket!”

When the three boys came back, she made them boil the horn and scoop out the inside of it so it was hollow, then they poked a hole in the tip and filled it with milk for the baby.

They stayed like this through the storm, eating figs and apricots and feeding the baby until she was pink again. Ginevra and Piero left in the morning.

“How far to the nearest well?” she asked him. “Do you remember?”

“I thought you said your flask would last us the journey?”

She said nothing.

Hours later, they came to another orchard. “Look, Ginevra, these are peach trees. Do you think we can find fruit?”

She shook her head. “No—the trees are barren. I have prunes I brought from Genoa, but we must not eat too many. We have several days’ journey ahead of us.”

Piero stopped. “TELL me what is going on! First, you don’t let us get any provisions because you say you can find them, now you tell me we have hardly anything after we give all our figs and water to those strangers—and why did you make their goat eat a rock?”

Ginevra sighed. Now was the time to stop hiding. “That rock is called a milkstone. It is very old and its presence creates abundance when there is none. This is how I kept my flask full and made trees bear fruit past their season.”

“And you fed it to a goat?”