The Professor told us that to protect Bianca we should feed her mint leaves. In the rare warm months, we grew as much as we could, taking precious crop space to harvest huge bushels of mint we use in the nightly tea, bathwater and
SELAH’S MINT SOUP
8 cups chicken stock
2 cups mint leaves
3 large eggs
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
At night Selah rubs mint leaves into my beard and pats my lips dry with mint leaves. I braid mint leaves into Selah’s hair. I whisper into her ear, You are my sparrow. Through the night we check on Bianca. When Bianca awakes screaming against February, Selah picks her up and holds her and tells Bianca to think of cloudless skies, a moose letting her hang by one hand from his nose.