Towards the end of a very hot July, Rebecca, a proud widow who lives in "an immense house with two galleries and nine bedrooms" (122) notices that the screens on her windows have been torn. At first, Rebecca thinks to tell Argenida, her "servant and confidante since her husband died" (122) but then decides to go straight to town to report "the attack" (122). There, she finds the mayor shirtless, repairing the window screens in his own office. Rebecca also notices a pile of dead birds on his desk.

Rebecca tells the mayor she's come to file a complaint about neighborhood boys breaking her window screens. The Mayor replies that it's not the boys, "it's the birds" (123). The mayor says he's surprised Rebecca hasn't noticed dead birds inside her house, since the problem has been going on all over town for three days. Embarrassed, Rebecca leaves town hall.

During the July of record-breaking heat, Father Anthony Isabel, the 94-year-old "bland parish priest" (124) begins to notice the birds. Father Anthony, who claims to have seen the devil thrice, blames the first two birds' deaths on neighborhood cats. After finding a third dead bird, though, Father Anthony begins to believe something is "happening" (125) with the birds.