Zel (8 page)

“Mother!” Zel stands up. She looks around the room as though she would run away. “What are you saying?”

I know we must keep holding hands. “There are those who would push you from one of our cliffs, those who would kill you.” I speak with a certainty not my own.

“Me?” Zel shakes her head. “But why, Mother?” Her words come out slowly, like stones rolling in wet grass. She shudders.

“We must protect you.”

“Who wants such a thing? How do you know? Maybe I can talk to the person. I have done no harm.” Zel frees her hands from mine. Frenzy lights her eyes. “You can come with me. Together we . . .”

“Yes, together we can protect you.” I stand. The pronouncement rises from my lungs, through my throat and mouth; yet I know what I say only as I hear it. “The gosling is dead.”

“The gosling?” Zel stares at me. Then she runs to the window. The goose sits on her nest. Zel cannot see the egg, but I know she realizes I am right. I stand beside her and watch the tears move down her cheeks. “Tiny life, tiny bones.” Zel presses her palm against her mouth. When she releases it, she turns to face me. Terror tightens her jaw. “What has the gosling to do with me, Mother?”

“You cannot take gifts people offer.”

“I asked for the egg, Mother.”

“But the youth insisted on giving you something.”
My voice is so quiet, it is barely audible. “You must not be near people.” My fingers take Zel’s braids. “You will grow your golden hair.” I speak without yet knowing where my words lead.

Zel twirls around. She raises her fists. “I don’t see any sense to your words.”

My confusion was equal to Zel’s, but now it is past. I am already calling together the powers I know. They pulse in my veins, soak through my muscles. They tell me of a tower abandoned centuries ago. “A safe place. You will see.”

Zel’s tears stream now. They drop to her smock. They make dark circles over her breasts.

Chapter 9
Zel

urry, Mother,” Zel whispers into Mother’s ear. Did she just hear a cry behind them, an evil cry as of a hungry predator? The stalker comes. “Hurry.”

Zel clings tighter. There is water all around. Water below them. Water that would suck them under, yet Mother races over it as though it is solid. Oh, merciful
water that supports Mother’s weight. Zel’s feet do not touch the water. Her arms are wrapped firm around Mother’s neck. Mother’s cloak shields them both.

But Mother’s cloak is not thick enough to ward off a dagger. Mother is stronger than Zel realized, for she carries her now without huffing and puffing. Still, Mother cannot fight off an enemy. “Flee faster, Mother.”

Zel listens hard. She hears nothing but the slap of water on water. She dares to peek from the cloak upward. The sky is aglow with stars and a full moon. In this glow she and Mother must surely be visible to whoever follows. She shivers and ducks inside the cloak.

“Get down and run, Zel. But stay close.” Mother is already racing along the shore. She scrabbles up the slope, pulling Zel by the hand.

An insect lands on Zel’s cheek and crawls to her hair. She swats at it. It is so hard to keep up with Mother. Where did the woman’s speed come from? And, oh, Zel is grateful for that speed. She uses all her strength to run. The pine branches scratch at her face. The forest is dense here. But that denseness is wonderful, for surely, oh, surely, it hides them.

And now Zel hears: Their running is loud. Twigs snap underfoot. They are as thunder. The stalker will have no trouble following them by sound alone. He needs no moonglow.

“Hurry, Mother.”

But Mother stops. Zel yanks on her cloak. Then she sees. She swallows the scream in her throat. There before them looms a tower. Near the top are tall windows going clear up to the overhang of the roof.

Mother sits on the ground.

“What are you doing, Mother? Do you know this tower? Is this the safe place you spoke of back in the cottage?” Zel pulls on Mother’s arm. “Get up. Oh, Mother, get up.”

Mother sits, silent.

Zel looks around quickly. She sees no door into the tower. She races around the base. The door is on the far side. She pulls on it. She pulls and pulls with all her strength, but the wood does not budge. It is hard as stone. This must be the right place, but how will they get in? Zel rushes back to Mother and kneels beside her. “Mother, you must get up. We have to work together to open the door.”

“Hush. Forget the door.” Mother’s eyes glitter hard in the moonlight. She stares beyond Zel at something. Something.

Zel spins around. The sapling walnut tree beside the tower, which was only half the height of the tower only moments ago, is growing, growing. It thickens and reaches; it grows. Zel cannot believe her eyes. She pants.

Mother stands and pushes Zel. “Climb. Fast. It is the only way in. Climb!”

Fear strengthens Zel’s hands, makes her foothold sure. She goes from one thick branch to another, easily, as though this tree were made to have the branches at just the right distance apart for her legs. One branch leads directly to the wide window ledge of the tower. Zel jumps down inside and turns to help Mother into the room.

Her arms meet empty air. Mother isn’t behind her.

“Mother!” Zel climbs back onto the window ledge.

But the walnut branch already retracts. It is too far from the window for Zel to reach.

Zel screams. “Mother!”

The tree is now shrunk to its normal height.

“Mother!”

Chapter 10
Mother

put my fingers in my ears and run. I stumble. I hear Zel’s scream still. I look for friendly ferns to stuff my ears, but the forest floor is covered with pine needles. I dig beneath them to the dirt and spit on dry grit. I plug my ears with the mud. And still I hear her scream. It is within my head.

I run to the shore. The water plants that rose beneath
my feet to form a path for us across the lake are still in place. It is deepest night; no one can be about at this hour. The risk that anyone will see me is small. And if someone does see, I’ll dive and wait till he passes. He’ll think it was his imagination. He’ll forget it.

I cross the lake, walking from one plant to another. Once my foot hits the rocks on the other side, I close my eyes and see Zel, her back pressed against the side of the tower room, tears streaming down her face. She is safe. I check the door. The wood is petrified; it can never be moved. I have done well. Zel is safe.

The frenzy within me gradually subsides.

In its place comes a bitter taste. I saw Zel in my head only for an instant, yet I know the terror she chews now. My daughter is frightened beyond thought. Oh, if only I could comfort her.

A weariness far more thorough than any I’ve known before invades my bones. I must climb the hillside and return to the cottage for a good sleep. In the morning I must plant an extensive herb garden. I do not know yet why, just as I did not understand each task tonight until I found myself performing it.

I climb.

I stop and close my eyes. I see my daughter.

Zel is in the room. Her breath is loud as storm winds; her heart is loud as unripe fruit dropping from trees in those winds. She puts one hand over her mouth and the
other over her heart. She presses. I know she strives to hush herself.

The tower room is utterly dark. Zel jerks as an owl hoots. She lifts her chin blindly toward an answering hoot. She shakes.

She dares to look outward over her shoulder. Shadows of bat wings cross at the top of the pines. Nothing else moves.

Slowly Zel slides one foot along the floor close to the wall. She pulls the other after it. She keeps her back to the tower wall and moves in this fashion the full circumference of the round room. She passes four windows in making the circle, ducking below each so that she cannot be seen from without. She keeps one hand on the cool stone of the wall behind her and the other hand stretched out in front toward the dark.

She stands immobile now, back leaning against the tower wall. Gradually, gradually the room becomes light. There is nothing in the room. Absolutely nothing. Stone walls, stone floor. But one stone is different. Zel kneels and touches.

It is a hatch. My heart contracts. I see the staircase leading down beneath it. Instantly I release energy into the wooden hatch. It hardens to stone, like the door at the base of the tower.

Zel digs at the edges of the hatch. She cannot lift it. No one can lift it. She works like a fiend. Finally, she slumps
back on her heels. Then she crawls to beneath a window. She stands beside it, pressing herself against the wall, and peeks out. The predawn forest rustles. Animals scurry in the underbrush. The owl gives a victorious screech. Zel puts her fist in her mouth and bites down hard. Her eyes glisten. She breathes shallow and rapid. She lifts the edge of her smock and twists it. Her foot taps the floor silently, evenly. One two three four . . . On and on.

I open my eyes. My daughter is as terrified as the rodent paralyzed in the owl’s talons. I will not watch this.

I climb.

I stop again and close my eyes, but I refuse to see Zel. Instead, I check once more: The door is rock hard; the hatch is rock hard. Safe.

I climb.

Chapter 11
Konrad