Breath (9781439132227) (12 page)

And I'm praying something else, too. I'm actually praying this was a ghost. And I know the rest of my family is praying the same. Better it should be a ghost than the first evidence of the ailment that curses our livestock and the folk of Hameln town. Better it be a ghost than the arrival of the death that took Ava's mother.

But it has to be a ghost. It has to be, because no one's complaining of tingling feet. No one's hands are trembling. We're all quiet. And sad. And tired, even before the day begins.

I don't offer explanations for Bertram's burns or Father's wounds. And no one asks explanations of me, for I, too, have wounds. Blood cakes in my hair so thick it's like a cap. I'm glad, so glad, at this salvation. I don't want to face Father's wrath at my hurting him. And, even more, I don't want anyone to know the ghost left me clear headed; I don't want them to know the ghost favored me.

I'm marked.

It's not fair. Being salty is enough; it's not fair this ghost should favor me. Only a wicked ghost would make men grab at fires and attack walls.

And the ghost made me sick again, in spite of how many hours I've been standing on my hands every day for weeks. My chest filled overnight. I'm coughing this morning. I stand on my hands, but the rush of blood aches my sore head so bad I get dizzy. I right myself and work to breathe. Ava pounds her fists on my back like Großmutter taught her. Her blows are light, but quick and continuous. I think they help break up the muck. I pray.

Großmutter puts a poultice on Bertram's hands and winds a fresh bandage around to keep it in
place. She boils a brew for head injuries and makes Father and me drink it. Melis and Ludolf repair the wall as best they can and wash the vomit and blood from the floor.

We sit down to breakfast glumly. Großmutter feeds Bertram, for tears come to his eyes if anything touches his bandaged hands. Everyone's appetite is off, though. Everyone's but Ava's and mine. They hardly eat anything. They don't even drink beer—that delicious new beer. But Ava and I eat like we're starved. What a sly ghost, to weaken them by stealing their appetite.

Something clatters upstairs. Rats must have knocked over a candleholder. That sort of thing happens a lot these days. But Father doesn't send me to kill them. His eyes show no energy. Only Ava reacts; she stiffens in fear. Maybe she's heard the talk that rats brought the illness that killed her mother. After all, everyone calls it the rat disease now. I lay one hand between her shoulder blades to calm her. My hand seems huge on her slight back.

I finish quickly and we two go outside. By now Avas got a good eye for rat stones. She runs back and forth, dropping them in a pile. We take them inside and tuck them here and there around the house, out of sight. Just in case. Ava seems to think
hiding the stones is a game. She actually smiles. She puts several stones behind the spinning wheel because it's her favorite object in the house.

Großmutter hangs a little bag around each of our necks, for protection. I press it to my nose. Parsnip, hemlock, poplar leaves. I can't tell what else. Just the smell makes me dizzy again. Or maybe that's the result of my head wound.

I refuse to ask myself if this is safe magic or dangerous magic. That sort of question can't matter any longer. I've seen people who were strong and healthy a month ago barely able to drag themselves along today, their feet have become so useless. Albert the Great didn't see that when he made his list of acceptable and unacceptable folk practices.

And anyone who hasn't seen shouldn't talk.

Father and Bertram rest in the common room. Father vows he'll be fine before the end of the day, but his voice is listless. Bertram says nothing. Pain contorts his face.

Thin Ludolf puts on a soft cap. The top comes to a point that hangs down over one of his ears. He shoulders the ax and heads for the woods without anyone telling him to. It's time to start building up our stockpile of firewood for the cold weather, true. But Ludolf rarely does a chore without being told.
His steps are big, and the rise and fall of his head as he walks away makes me think of water. There's a floaty quality to his movements. Like when we gently bob on the surface of the lagoon on hot summer days.

The image of the candles floating in the bowls of water when we buried the cow alive comes unbidden. I hate myself for remembering; it feels dangerous. Memories can invite trouble, and we have so much already. I bend over and bury my nose in Ava's hair. She turns and throws her arms around my neck. There are good things to think about; there's a girl child who smiles at hiding stones, who sits patiently beside Kuh as he eats. A girl child with a high, sharp scream that begs a ghost not to come between us.

Großmutter and Melis and Ava and I drive the wagon into Hameln town to sell the beer. We're floaty at first too—dreamy. But the bumping over the rough ground seems to wake us fully. We pass by herds that have half the number of cattle they had last spring. The wrongness of it makes my teeth clench.

At the gate to town an official stops us. “Beer, is it? Where's your license?”

“We dont use flavorings,” says Melis. The spunk in his voice surprises me after the way he's been acting so tired. “We don't need a license.”

“It can't taste very good, then,” says the man.

“Ha.” Großmutter gives a disdainful snort. “You know it tastes better than any other beer you've ever had, Wirnt. You've been drinking it all your life, since seven years after I delivered you.”

The man called Wirnt doesn't look the least abashed. “Magic charms are against the law, even when they make the beer taste good. Offenders will wind up in the
Hundeloch
”

I go hot. The
Hundeloch
, the dog's hole, is the dungeon under the
Rathaus
, the town hall. People say it is the worst place on Earth. I cough.

But Großmutter just sits up taller. “Magic? Is that what you call hops?”

Wirnt rubs his hands together. He looks triumphant, like he's tricked us into an admission. “The monastery doesn't like others using hops.”

“Is that why they wasted your morning, making you wait here for us?” Großmutter slaps her thighs. “I never thought a child of Elisabeth's would become a monk's lackey. I imagine she's turning over in her grave now.”

Color creeps up Wirnt's neck, but he doesn't budge. “They're talking about passing a law. Only monasteries will be allowed to use hops.”

“Between talk and deed lies a field of weed.”
She smiles with her lips closed. “Kindly step aside.”

Wirnt moves out of our way begrudgingly.

“Better come buy some extra jugs,” Großmutter calls to him as we go through the gate. “Because if that law passes, you can wager you'll be paying a lot more for monastery beer before long.” Her tone is sassy.

I don't feel sassy, though. I don't like the fact that the monastery will be angry with us. I dont want anyone being angry with us. Not these days. Not with the way things are now.

I remember being in the crowd and how the widow's hand closed around my wrist when I started to tell what Pater Frederick had taught me about the rats. If Großmutter acts wrong, I'll have to be the one to close my hand around her wrist. We've all got to take care of one another.

We drive the wagon to the very edge of the market square, across from the
Rathaus
. People approach us already. Großmutter takes the money while Melis hands out the jugs.

I stand in the wagon and look across the square, searching for the traveling merchant who's supposed to bring me medicine. My eyes scan every booth. He's not here, of course. I knew he wouldn't
be. I look more out of habit than hope. Maybe he's in Hannover, sitting in a square, enchanted by the playing of the colorful piper.

A woman pulls on my trouser leg and begs me to come kill rats. I don't want to go, I feel so bad. And Ava would hate being on a rat hunt, but I don't want to leave her behind. I don't want to leave Großmutter, either, because she's acting so willful. But Großmutter insists. And maybe it's more dangerous not to go kill this woman's rats. After all, the townsfolk are grateful that I'm a good ratter. We need that goodwill. I tell Ava to stay in the wagon, and I follow the woman.

But we don't turn down any of the narrow side streets. We stop at a tall, gabled merchant house right on the market square. The front door has painted panels, and there's a carved arch over the doorway. I'm told to keep my eyes down and led straight into the kitchen. Even with my eyes down I can hear what's going on. I can hear men calling obscene words and women laughing.

Within minutes I kill a rat that I've roused from the churn. I search through the grinders and food bins. I beat a spoon on a copper plate that has some man's likeness etched onto it. It rings loud. But no other rats show themselves. The maidservant is
annoyed. She can't fault the ratter, though; I've done all I could.

When I come out, I'm standing by the church that the lords and ladies use. The farmers and peasants have a different church, on the next square, so I've never been in this one. It's wider than ours. And there are buttresses at the corners, and stone carvings of animals over the side windows.

Pater Michael stands but an arms length from me, talking with two men. He waves me over with strangely jerky movements. My stomach turns in fear: The rats have infected even him. Even this man of God.

I come forward hesitantly. I see the priest every week at Mass, and I stood across the circle from him that day he told the crowd to blame the rats for the towns disease. But he hasn't seen me since the day our coven buried the cow alive. I'm careful not to come within his vision range. I don't want to talk to anyone about that day.

“Salz, it's you, isn't it?” he says. “Pater Frederick tells me you're developing quite an eye for beauty.”

It's true. At my last lesson in Höxter we talked of architecture. Pater Frederick showed me drawings of cathedrals all over the Christian world. We agreed on which churches were the most beautiful,
the most worthy expressions of praise to God. I nod assent to Pater Michael.

He picks at the crust of blood in my hair. It hurts, and I step away, coughing.

“Then, you'll enjoy this sight. Come along.” He waves farewell to the men and goes through a side door in the church. I stand, stupid, watching the door close in front of me. But he meant for me to follow, he did. I reach for the brass handle on the door, the beautiful handle in the form of a fish whose back is curved perfectly to fit a palm. It's smooth and cool to the touch. I almost caress it as I find the nerve to open the door to the airiness of the high-ceilinged nave.

“Dont dawdle, boy.” Pater Michael leads the way to the holy-water font. We kneel and bless ourselves. Then we walk up the center aisle. A rat skitters along the right wall. I wonder what draws it into the church. Maybe the Communion wafers? I'm glad Pater Michael can't see this desecration of his holy church.

We stand at the front, before the pointed arches. The two side ones open to small chapels, but the middle one, the highest, opens onto the octagonal altar, beyond which the sun streams in colors through five windows in a semicircle. All hold
images. The middle one is Jesus with his right hand up, two fingers extended in blessing. The light itself is red and yellow and green. I know about stained glass—Pater Frederick has told me—but this is the first time I've experienced its glory. I'm transfixed.

Illuminated manuscripts have made me gasp. Delicate carvings in columns have made me gawk. Paintings on the walls of the peasant church and on the walls of the chapel in the Höxter abbey have almost made me cry with how stunning they are: one of the apostles; one of the Lord on a throne, with a scepter in the right hand and a globe in the left; one of Samson and the doors of Gaza; and, oh, especially one of Saint Luke holding a sacred scroll, looking into the future at the dreadful things to come. So I have experienced beauty created by man through divine inspiration.

But nothing is as marvelous as stained glass.

“I take it you're pleased,” says Pater Michael, smiling. “The glassmaker just finished them yesterday. Describe them to me.” He squints upward. “Help me see them.”

My heart almost breaks as I realize how much he misses because of his eyes. “My words could never be equal to their beauty,” I say honestly.

He smiles. “A response judicious in its humility,
Salz. Then, give me just a hint of one window. Start at the left.” He interlaces his fingers and looks vaguely toward the leftmost window.

“That glass shows a huge tree. Seven branches end in seven giant leaves. Small tendrils crisscross one another all over the place and end in flower clusters. A man with a crown has sliced through the bottom of the trunk. His sword is bright yellow—gold, really. The roots of the tree fly, as though the blow of the sword has ripped them from the ground.” I pause for breath. “Why has he cut the tree?” I ask.

“That's King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, dreaming of his guilt.”

I don't know this Bible story, and I don't want to ask now, though guilt is a matter I care about. For now all I want is to bask in the light that filters through the stained glass.

“Thank you,” says Pater Michael when he realizes I'm not going to add anything else.

I turn in a circle. The rest of the church seems dark and drab now, the ceiling flat and plain. Nothing compares to the stained glass; nothing pierces my heart like the stained glass.

I look once more and find I'm holding out my hands toward Nebuchadnezzar's tree. I feel lifted,
weightless, my lungs seem clear. My hands are red and yellow and green.

I think of Melis talking about the colors of the fire last night. He spoke reverently.

Pater Michael and I walk back out to the market square.

“The lords are having stained glass put in every window of the church,” says Pater Michael.