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

birth. Yes, I’m almost sure that’s it. I should pick some of those grasses. Maybe we couldsoak them and weave pentagrams to replace the straw ones over the door. They’d be more colorful.
    Stabs in my belly.
    I breathe out. At the very end of the exhalation there’s a moment of nothingness—a moment between time. I hide there, deaf and mute and untouchable. Pain can’t get me there. I’m safe, briefly. But the air comes rushing back in.
    I scream.
    Watch the grass. Think about the grass, the pink-and-purple grass, only the grass. The grass full of fungus. Would that the pink-and-purple fungus could work its magic on me and stop this excruciating pain.
    I reach for a stalk. Grass and fungus. Grass. Think of grass.
    A cow swings her heavy head and knocks my arm. She rips away the pink and purple that Kuh was swatting. The kitten flips over backward. And my brain flips as well, in pink-and-purple waves of pain.
    It’s so hard to breathe. The grasses can’t hold my thoughts. I am a knot of everything foul. Nothing can save me. Coughs rack my chest. Each convulsion feels like the ax Bertram uses to cut beeches for firewood. Chop on my belly. Chop on my gut. Mybrother, eyes red from crying, yellow from rage, chopping me to bits. No more breath. Sparks before my eyes. Then black.
    I recognize the smell. But, no, it couldn’t be pepper. I’m imagining the smell because I’ve been thinking about it lately, that’s it. Next week I go back to Höxter for the sugared cinnamon bun and to smell pepper again—and for my lesson, of course. I move to get up, but the pain comes like hate. I scream.
    Kuh mews piteously. I didn’t realize he was curled on my chest.
    Großmutter clumps to my side. I’m on the floor in the common room, and Kuh is now beside my head mewing and mewing. Großmutter kneels and holds a bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other. She feeds me.
    I get up on one elbow and close my mouth around the gray muck. I fight a gag. “This tastes awful.”
    â€œEat.” She forces another spoonful between my teeth.
    I try to swallow fast without tasting. “What’s in it?”
    â€œThe head and feet of a green lizard, three smashed snails in their shells, fifteen peppercorns, all ground into porridge.”
    My belly contracts, but I won’t scream again. “I feel better,” I say.
    â€œDon’t lie, boy.”
    I drop to my back again, careful not to squash Kuh, who rubs against me, purring now. “Why can’t I just wear eagle feet in an amulet?”
    She doesn’t answer. We both know the eagle didn’t work for me before. Großmutter doesn’t waste her time on remedies already proved ineffective.
    â€œWhere did you get the peppercorns?”
    â€œFrom a traveling merchant. After Melis found you, I sent him to the market in town.”
    Melis went all the way to market for my sake? He’s a good brother. I’d do the same for him, anytime, day or night, in any weather. Peppercorns. “They must have cost a lot.”
    â€œHe traded a jug of our beer for a handful.”
    â€œThat sounds cheap to me,” I say.
    â€œOur beer has a reputation. Even this traveling merchant had heard of it. Edgy and hoppy.” Großmutter’s voice is proud. Father may have taught her the formula, but she’s the one who can take the credit, because she’s the one who brews the beer. “Sit up and eat.”
    I prop myself on both elbows now and open my mouth. I take a lesson from the cows with thebees—if I swallow fast enough, nothing can hurt me. I eat the whole bowl.
    Großmutter pushes my hair out of my eyes and cups her palm around my forehead. She holds it there far too long to be simply checking for fever. That feels so good, I want her to hold it there forever. Her eyes linger worriedly on my face. Abruptly she stands and goes out the door.
    Kuh sticks his nose in the bowl on