Breath (9781439132227) by Donna Jo Napoli Read Free Book Online

count—were three newborn kittens, all in a sticky mess from being born in the sack. One was dead. One died the next day. But one survived, licking cow’s milk off myfinger like mothers milk. That’s why I named him Kuh—cow. He’s black, but for a small white splotch at his throat. And he mews till I hold him. He wants me to hold him all the time. Ludolf called him
Kuhdumme
. But he’s not dumb at all. He does what he must in order to live. I could see immediately that this kitten was my familiar.
    How silly I had been to think a toad was my appointed animal. I’d always caught toads, long before I joined our coven, so I looked at them as naturally mine. When I joined our coven, I didn’t need the supreme head to appoint my familiar, I simply took toads as my own. I understand toads. Cats, on the other hand, I’d always avoided. The only explanation, then, for this kitten’s and my immediate attraction for each other was that he was my true familiar. The powers that be would simply have to overlook the white splotch. And I named him Kuh, though he’s a thousand times smaller than the smallest calf.
    Großmutter’s annoyed. Even small like he is, she doesn’t like him in the house. That’s all right, though, because I never put him down on her floor. Kuh loves riding on my shoulder. But I can’t go fast, because he digs in his claws if he fears he’s about to fall. Tiny claws can hurt bad.
    He’s riding on my shoulder this morning. So I started out slow. But now I’m going much slower, with every step I go slower and slower. The pain in my belly woke me before dawn. I went outdoors to relieve myself, and even though I couldn’t move my bowels, just letting out the waters made me feel all right again. For breakfast I ate a mash of turnips and lentils spiced with boiled celery—the same thing we had for dinner last night—and I went out to the cow barn satisfied, and milked them all in my usual amount of time. But with each step the pains have increased. Now they’re sharp. And I’m burping, too.
    The cows are nosing through the wild grasses and flowers, ripping them with swings of their heads. I’m on the ground, doubled over around my aching belly. Kuh is swatting at my hair as I jerk my head. He’s so tiny, but he plays already.
    From down here I can look closely at the flowers, at the droplets of nectar, at the bees that ignore me because I smell bad compared with the pink and purple and yellow blooms. The cows take mouthfuls of flowers, with no heed to the bees. Some of them escape as the cows open their mouths for the next big swallow, but others disappear down their throats. If they sting, the cows don’t show it. Iwonder if they can sting later, when the cows chew their cud.
    This hurts so bad I’m on my back now, holding my knees tight against my belly, trying to let out gas, but nothing comes. Sweat pools on my chest, the pain has come on so fast. I have to think about the flowers and the bees and the cows and how Kuh has discovered those bees and is jumping on his back feet after them, looking so funny with his bulging milk belly. I have to think about Koppen Hill in the distance, so covered with flowers that it looks like a big purple mole on the cheek of the earth. I have to think about anything, anything other than this damnable pain.
    Now Kuh’s battling a spike of tall grass that has a pink-and-purple growth on it. It’s not a flower—it’s grass—so the colors confuse me. I put all my energy into staring at that grass. From here the tips of the grasses all around seem like a baby’s blanket, so many of them are pink and purple. That’s why I didn’t notice them before—they’re almost invisible among the flowers. A kind of fungus, it must be, from all the rain. And maybe I recognize it—maybe it’s the one Großmutter uses to staunch hemorrhage after a