Breath (9781439132227) (10 page)

“Is it just you and he that are affected, then?” asks Großmutter.

She shakes her head. “The servants, too. And now the children are sick. Their hands and feet swell. The black holes in their eyes are huge. They cry. And I know it hurts. My own hands hurt.” She licks her lips and seems to have trouble catching her breath. “Tonight they vomited. They can't stop twitching. They'd vomit continually if there were anything left inside them.”

“Has anyone new come to visit?”

“No,” says the lady.

“Is your home clean of ghosts?”

“We've never been bothered before,” says the lady. “And I think it's not just us. I hear things in the neighbors' homes. I hear screams.”

“Sit by the warming oven, dear lady.” Großmutter points to a chair.

“Do you know what's wrong with us, then?”

“Sit. I'll do what I can.”

The lady sinks into the chair and bends over her rosary.

Her talk of sex makes me wonder if this family has somehow come across one of the mixtures our coven uses, for ours make the senses wild too, as I know now so well. But our hands and feet don't swell.

Großmutter motions for me to go with her into the kitchen. Father and my brothers are talking loudly now, their tongues loosened by the beer. They don't even ask us what we're doing. Großmutter refills their mugs. I'm surprised Father doesn't stop her. The new beer from this year's harvest ferments in the barrels, but it isn't ready yet, and last year's supply is growing dangerously low. We'll have nights of bad temper if we run out before the new batch can be drunk.

Großmutter fills a pot with the rest of the water in our bucket. That means I'll have to fetch water at dawn before breakfast. I look back at the lady with resentment. Her shoulders shake. Perhaps she's crying. Shame warms me. “Can I help?” I ask Großmutter.

“Grate me a handful of aconite.”

Aconite root is an ingredient in some of our coven's mixtures. I grate but keep my eyes on Großmutter. Nothing else she adds is remarkable: soot, a large ladleful of lentils from our soup tonight, and hemp. She cooks the brew till boiling. Then she fills a small jar.

“What about the rest?” I whisper. “You made so much.”

“There'll be others wanting it,” says Großmutter,
“soon enough.” She makes the sign of the cross, then carries the jar to the lady.

“Oh, thank you.” Tears glisten on her cheeks. “God should bless you for this.”

“Wake your household. Make each one take a sip in the moonlight.”

“Is that all?” asks the lady.

“Pray.”

Over the next few days the rest of the brew goes, small jar by small jar, carried away by women with trembling hands and kerchiefs that don't really protect them against anything. Everyone who comes is townsfolk—some ladies, some servants to those ladies—but all townsfolk.

The farmers have been spared. Father doesn't miss the chance to point that out to Bertram. He says town life is unhealthy. His remarks aren't entirely fair, for the workers who live in town seem to have been spared for the most part too.

But Bertram doesn't even argue with him. His own eyes are as nervous as those of the ladies who come for Großmutter's help. His Johannah is sick. She has no feeling in her feet. I caught him watching Großmutter make a new batch of brew the other day. No more talk about the coven's being nonsense; to the contrary, his lips moved—he was
actually praying under his breath. I've said extra prayers for Johannah, too.

The brew doesn't seem to be helping, though. Some of the ladies have come more than once.

And last night youths came—boys of Ludolf's age or older. They stood by the door and held out their hands and looked at their fine shoes. I wished they'd come inside so I could see the colors of their tunics. They stood like grazers in a storm, pushed up against one another. Even so, they seemed as vulnerable as the women who come one by one. They whispered requests—no talk of God or salvation—not like what the women say, just simple requests for help. When their hands closed around the jars, they muttered thanks and ran.

Großmutter stood at the door and watched after them for a while, though I know she couldn't see them in the dark, especially with her weak eyes. She pulled on her knobby fingers and shuddered. She brushed her cheek against Kuh on my shoulder, giving both of us a brief hug in passing.

The farmers are worried too, of course. We're healthy, but our animals aren't. And we know that sooner or later whatever ails the townsfolk will come to us. Even Father fears that—despite his
nasty crowing to Bertram. He rubs his hands. And this morning I caught him rubbing his feet. He was checking to see if he could feel everything, I just know it. I do the same.

So Großmutter's announcement at breakfast was welcome. She's enlisted all of us to help her make buckets and buckets of a new brew. We work without complaint, even Father, who I've never seen take orders from anyone before. We load the filled buckets onto the wagon and drive them to town. We stop on the east bridge, before the gate of the inner town wall.

It isn't sensible for us to drive the road to the market square. We're not selling, after all. Großmutter has never sold the fruits of her knowledge as a healer. People have given her gifts sometimes or done her good deeds in return. But even if a person has nothing to spare, even if a person is a disreputable vagrant that we'll never see again, Großmutter doesn't turn him away. She says no good Christian would.

It's more than that, though. She won't say it, but I see the way her eyes dart around. I know that as long as she gives the brew away, no one can say she's presenting herself as a professional healer—so no one can blame her if people get sicker.

Melis and I walk into town and spread the word. It isn't hard. Everyone's eager for new potions.

Then Melis and I go on to the market square. He continues alone toward the next square, where our church is. He likes to go to church when no one else is there. He stands in a corner and doesn't say a word. He stands there for the longest time. I know because he used to take me when I was smaller. I loved it.

He invited me now. It surprised me; it's been years since he invited me. But I didn't go. I have something else I have to do.

I walk up and down through the booths in the market square, looking for the traveling merchant who's supposed to bring me Arab medicine. I've been going to the market as often as I can since we met him. I don't want to miss him when he finally returns.

But he's not here. How can it be that he hasn't come back yet?

Maybe he knew a schilling was way more than Großmutter could really afford. Maybe he thought there'd never be another waiting for him when he returned with the Arab medicine. But Großmutter keeps promises. She'll find the money somehow.

That thought makes me instantly guilty.
Großmutter spent so much on me. And it didn't even occur to me to try to stop her. What had she been saving that money for?

I hear a shriek.

I turn to see a man fall and jerk around on the ground, legs and arms flailing. He's convulsing, as I do in my worst bouts of illness. A crowd gathers quickly around him.

“I knew it would come to this,” says a woman beside me.

“He's the one that was speaking in tongues,” says another.

Others agree. And now they're talking about strange things they've seen or heard.

“This town is sick,” says a man.

Then they stop. It's eerie. When people get going on rumors, they don't just stop. But this crowd does. The fear in the air would crush us all.

Someone goes for Pater Michael. But by the time he comes, the sick man has passed out. Two others carry him home.

“Help us, Pater,” says a woman. “End this curse. Punish those responsible, the evil ones.”

I go still as death.

“It could be the rats,” says Pater Michael.

“They're everywhere,” says another woman.

And I'm breathing again, for now people are naming the places they've found the rats: cabinets, benches, rooftops, ditches, barrels, beds. There's no end.

I remember Kröte's blood on the rats' whiskers.

Rats are hateful.

Pater Frederick talked a lot about rats at my last lesson. There have been stories of rats bringing disease since ancient times. They come from the Far East. They say the rats went from Mongolia to Mesopotamia to Asia Minor to Africa and Europe. Pater Frederick showed me on a map. He said Mongolia is plagued with rats. And he gave me a sugared cinnamon bun too. He remembered. It was perfect.

And when I gave the coven woman in Höxter a summer coverlet that Großmutter had woven for her, she gave me another sack of cats. She's raising them as fast as she can, trying to supply the whole valley with ratters.

The talk of rats grows louder. The crowd is practically in a frenzy now.

“Pater Frederick of Höxter has told me all about the disease rats bring,” I say, excited to join the throng.

“What has he told you, boy?” a man asks.

But a hand clamps around my wrist from behind. I look over my shoulder. It's the widow in our coven. She squeezes hard. And I remember: I mustn't draw attention to myself. The supreme head of our coven warned us all—these are times for coven members to fade from the public's mind. “It's bad,” I say, bowing my head.

“The worst we've ever had,” says the man.

“We'll have to call Pater Frederick here for advice,” says another.

“If he'll come to a sick town.”

“In the meantime we can't just wait around. We have to do something.”

Already everyone's declaring war on the rats. I look for the beautiful widow, to thank her, and maybe to squeeze her wrist back—to see where that leads—but she's gone.

I wander through the market, looking vaguely at the booths. My eyes go across things I know so well, goods made by locals. I seek out oddities. Where are the colorful Arab goods?

And I realize there aren't any. In fact, none of the merchants looks like a stranger. Not a single one.

That's what the man in the crowd meant: The word has gotten around that Hameln is sick. People from other parts are staying away. That's why the
traveling merchant Großmutter gave the schilling to hasn't brought me the Arab medicine.

Suddenly Hugo's beside me. I haven't seen him since Großmutter fed the cows blackberries soaked in holy water. “Are you still a good aim?” he asks me.

“The best,” I say. After all, I can guess what's on his mind. False humility would serve no purpose.

We walk to the edge of the market and pick up stones.

“Lead us to your rats,” shouts Hugo.

We go from house to house, killing rats. Other boys join us. But it's clear I'm the best at it.

Over the next several days I'm in demand. Me, more than anyone else. It didn't take long for people to learn of my unerring aim. I'm the king rat killer. Some townsfolk give me a little extra something—a spool of thread; a witch-hazel broom; even, once, a small bag of Arab rice—if I come right into their home and kill as many as I see. One old woman gave me a hand-carved crucifix with ivory inlay. I don't know how on earth she came to own something so beautiful—and I refused to take it. But when I left her home, she forced it into my hand. I gave it to Melis. I already have a crucifix that Pater Frederick gave me anyway. It's not nearly so nice, but who needs two?

Most people don't pay me, though. And that's fine. Seeing a dead rat is payment enough.

They're everywhere. In the open sewers, of course. But also in the shops, even the fancy millinery shops.

I take on the task with zeal. I hate these rats. I hate seeing our cattle suffer. I hate seeing the sows give birth early, to little balls of white hide that never squirm like piglets should. Or, even worse, to skin-and-bones piglets that die from lack of milk before the sun sets. And I never want to see a man convulsing on the ground again. If it were up to me, there'd be no rats left anywhere on Earth.

By the week's end dead rats hang on leather strings nailed to the door of every home in town. May their rotting flesh fend off others.

And by the week's end something else happens: Großmutter comes home with a girl child in tow. Short and fat-cheeked, with something that looks like mud in her hair and makes it stick to one side of her face.

Father brings his fist down on the table so hard the bowls clear over on the shelf clatter.

“Don't bother with your shenanigans,” says Großmutter before he can speak. “She's an orphan. And forget trying to sell her. No one's
buying children from Hameln now—not with our woes.”

“But she doesn't know hunger, just look at her,” says Father. “She's a servant's offspring, no doubt—she's the onus of the master.”

“The mother died in my arms this afternoon; the master says she's mine.”

So it's finally happened: A person died. My brothers look stricken, especially Bertram.

Father's hand spreads wide and heavy on the wood table. “This is what comes of posing as a healer at your age,” he says slowly. “You can't even see what you're doing. You can't watch a child as small as that one. We'll have to …”

“I'll watch her.” I step forward and take the girl's hand. It feels like Eike's and Hilde's and Gertrude's. It feels like every girl's hand I've ever held.

“You?” says Melis. “Don't think I'll be taking over that girl whenever you cough.”

“I won't ask you to,” I say. “Besides, I'm not going to be sick anymore.”

“How's that?” asks Bertram. “How will you keep from getting sick?” His eyebrows come together and his whole face wrinkles. “What are you up to?”

“Stop your bickering,” says Großmutter. “He
didn't mean anything by it. He just wants us to keep the girl. And we will. There's no choice.”