He lifted a handful of straw.
Several eggs lay beneath it.
Some were visibly broken. Others had hairline fractures across their shells.
"How many?" Rowan asked.
"Three hundred and fifty."
She stared at the wagon.
"All of them?"
"Every last one."
The merchant laughed.
"Not a single one will hatch."
Rowan stepped closer.
She picked up an egg.
It was warm.
Not hot, but warm enough that she could feel the difference between it and the cold morning air.
"How much do you want for them?"
Harlan looked confused.
"For what?"
"The eggs."
He glanced at the merchant.
"Nothing. They're ruined."
"I'll take them."
The merchant burst out laughing.
"You're buying broken eggs?"
Rowan ignored him.
Harlan scratched his head.
"Miss Mercer, some are cracked. Some have been cold too long. You could lose every one."
"Then I shall lose them."
She reached into her coat and counted the money she had brought.
It was not much.
Enough for flour, lamp oil, and a few supplies.
Not enough to purchase three hundred and fifty eggs at their original price.
But Harlan was desperate to recover something from the ruined shipment.
He finally agreed to sell the entire lot for a small sum.
Rowan paid him.
Then she borrowed a second wagon, lined it with blankets, and began transferring the eggs.
The work took nearly three hours.
People gathered to watch.
By the time she finished, the livestock yard had become a small audience.
A woman standing beside the fence shook her head.
"Poor girl."
A man laughed.
"She'll be eating omelets until Christmas."
Someone else called out, "Perhaps the marsh needs more rubbish!"
Rowan tightened the canvas over the crates.
She did not answer.
She had learned that some people laughed because they were cruel.
Others laughed because they were afraid of looking foolish themselves.
And a few laughed because they could not imagine that anyone might succeed at something they had already declared impossible.
Rowan climbed onto the wagon.
As she passed through the gate, Harlan Pike called after her.
"Miss Mercer!"
She turned.
He was standing beside the empty wagon, looking uncertain.
"If even a few hatch, come and tell me."
Rowan smiled.
"I will."
The journey home was difficult.
Several roads had become muddy trenches. The wagon wheels sank repeatedly, and Rowan had to unload some of the crates to pull the vehicle through the worst sections.
By the time she reached the farm, her shoulders ached and her hands were blistered.
But the eggs were safe.
Or as safe as she could make them.
She carried them into the old barn.
Then she began building an incubator.
Rowan had never owned an incubator.
She had seen one once at a poultry farm where she worked for three months as a young woman.
The machine had been made of metal, with a small stove beneath it and a thermometer mounted on the front.
She had no money for such a device.
So she built her own.
She used a wooden cabinet, a shallow tray, wool blankets, and a small iron stove connected to a flue. She lined the interior with straw and fitted a simple ventilation opening into the side.
For warmth, she used heated stones wrapped in cloth.
For measuring temperature, she borrowed a thermometer from Silas Bell.
For turning the eggs, she relied on her hands.
The work was exhausting.
She slept in the barn, waking every few hours to check the temperature and adjust the stove.
Some eggs were clearly ruined.
Others showed signs of life.
Rowan separated them into groups.
She marked the damaged shells with charcoal and recorded their condition in a notebook.
Every morning, she inspected the eggs.
Every evening, she turned them.
When the temperature rose too high, she opened the ventilation flap.
When it fell, she added warm stones.
The process was uncertain and imperfect.
But it was the only chance she had.
On the fifth day, a terrible storm swept across the marsh.
Rain struck the barn roof, and the wind tore loose several boards.
At midnight, Rowan heard a sharp crack.
She rushed to the incubator.
The stove had shifted, and one of the wooden supports had broken.
The temperature was falling.
She tried to lift the cabinet, but it was too heavy.
Water began dripping through the roof.
Rowan dragged the eggs into a smaller crate, wrapped them in blankets, and carried them toward the farmhouse.
Halfway across the yard, she slipped.
The crate fell.
Eggs rolled across the mud.
She dropped to her knees, gathering them with shaking hands.
Several shells broke beneath her fingers.
For a moment, she sat in the rain, staring at the ruined eggs.
She had spent every spare coin she possessed.
She had worked until her hands bled.
And now, in the darkness, the entire effort seemed ridiculous.
She thought of Caldwell's polished boots.
She thought of the people in Bellweather laughing.
Then she remembered her aunt's letter.
Do not let anyone convince you that a thing is worthless simply because they do not understand what it is for.
Rowan drew a breath.
She gathered the remaining eggs.
Then she carried them inside.
By dawn, the storm had passed.
The farmhouse was a mess.
Water covered the kitchen floor, and the fire had gone out.
Rowan sat beside the stove, wrapped in a blanket, with the eggs arranged around her.
She did not know how many would survive.
She only knew she had not finished trying.
The first gosling hatched eleven days later.
Rowan was cleaning the incubator when she heard a faint tapping.
She froze.
A second tap came from inside one of the eggs.
Then a tiny crack appeared along the shell.
She moved closer.
For several minutes, nothing happened.
Then the shell split.
A small yellow beak emerged.
Rowan covered her mouth.
The gosling pushed against the shell, struggled, and finally tumbled into the straw.
It was wet, weak, and smaller than her hand.
But it was alive.
Rowan knelt beside it.
"Well," she whispered. "Look at you."
She wrapped the gosling in a soft cloth and placed it beneath a warm lamp.
Then she returned to the incubator.
By sunset, four more had hatched.
The next morning, there were eleven.
By the end of the week, twenty-three goslings were moving around a makeshift brooder in the kitchen.
Rowan began to laugh.
It was not a polite laugh or a nervous one.
It was the kind of laughter that comes after a person has spent too long holding her breath.
She fed the goslings a mixture of crushed grain and finely chopped greens.
She kept their bedding dry.
She monitored their temperature and separated the weakest birds.
Not every gosling survived.
Some were too frail.
Others had suffered damage before arriving at the farm.
But more hatched every day.
By the time the last viable eggs opened, Rowan had sixty-eight healthy goslings.
Sixty-eight.
Out of three hundred and fifty damaged eggs.
It was not the miracle she had imagined when she purchased them.
It was something more useful.
Proof.
Proof that the farm could produce something.
Proof that the marsh could support life.
Proof that her work was not entirely foolish.
She wrote the number in her notebook.
Then she placed the notebook beside her aunt's old ledger.
Outside, the marsh was beginning to change.
The water had receded from the western fields.