Breath (9781439132227) by Donna Jo Napoli

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.
    â€œI knew it would come to this,” says a woman beside me.
    â€œHe’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.
    â€œThis 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.
    â€œHelp us, Pater,” says a woman. “End this curse. Punish those responsible, the evil ones.”
    I go still as death.
    â€œIt could be the rats,” says Pater Michael.
    â€œThey’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.
    â€œPater Frederick of Höxter has told me all about the disease rats bring,” I say, excited to join the throng.
    â€œWhat has he told you, boy?” a man asks.
    But a hand clamps around my wrist from behind.