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.”
“Ah, who cares, anyway?” says Bertram. “We’ve got important things to dwell on.”
Let it go, Father, I am thinking. Listen to Bertram. I squeeze the girl’s hand.
She doesn’t look at me. She says nothing. Her arm is limp.
The others go on about their business. It’s happening. They’re really letting her stay.
And she’s my charge.
Oh, Lord, let me not be like the people the piper spoke so bitterly about that day in the woods: let me deserve this child.
My knees feel weak. It’s just as well; I kneel so that my shoulder is at the girl’s eye level. She looks at Kuh and blinks. Her lips form a perfect circle. I know she breathes “Ooooh,” even if she makes no noise.
The world changes quietly.
Beer
We’re pouring beer from barrels into jugs and sealing them good with wood pegs. The six of us work together while Ava perches on a bench watching, Kuh in her lap. Ava and I won’t get to drink it, of course, but the rest of us are growing happy at the very idea of the beer. And the smell of it alone makes me a little tipsy. We laugh, as though this is the start of a beer festival like any other, in any other year.
Only it’s totally different. Laughing these days feels like blasphemy. But even in the face of illness it should be no sin to recognize little pleasures. We should be allowed that much. We have to be allowed that much. Our laughing becomes almost defiant.
The beer smells clean and strong—just like it should. We still haven’t used this year’s grain harvest for our bread; we’re giving the fresh grain to the animals. But we had to use fresh grain for this beer. There was no other way—there simply wasn’t enough of last year’s grain left to make a whole year’s worth of beer and still have old grain for bread for all the farm families. Besides, the animals are dying in spite of the new grain. And the monasteries are using fresh grain for their beer. Yesterday the monastery pub started serving this year’s beer from fresh grain. So no one will buy our beer if it isn’t as tasty as theirs.
We finish the job and put the beer jugs on the wagon. We’ll drive them to market tomorrow. Our beer is so loved that it’ll all go in one day. It always does.
The beer for home consumption remains in barrels in the cellar beside the piles and piles of apples. There’s plenty left for our family and for any festivals we want to contribute to.
Then we sit down to the evening meal. Soup of so many different vegetables I can’t even guess at them all. Großmutter chopped them alone when she took a break from the beer work, but I stayed with my brothers and Father, working hard, and Ava stayed with us too. She never leaves me.
After the soup there’s pears, then the fresh beer and darkest bread. Großmutter has been adding extra molasses to the bread dough. She says it’s to cover the musty taste of the old grain, but I heard her ask Ava if she liked molasses, so I know better. Ava wouldn’t eat the bread before, but she gobbles it down now.
Ava and I drink cider. It’s cool and sweet. She sits on my lap at the table, and I lean out to the side so I can smile at my girl child. She never smiles back, but she looks at me now. She has a steady, soft gaze. Her face is framed in wispy, light brown hair. It’s clean now—I saw to that. It amazes me how easily she fit into our lives. At first I worried about her all the time—about what a responsibility I’d taken on. But now she’s a given, like a shadow, always there but never in the way. Or not a shadow—a little flicker of candlelight following me around like a benevolent spirit. The smell of her makes me feel good.
For the first time in so long the conversation is about something other than the rat disease that ravages our animals and the townsfolk. We talk about beer. Father says this is the most delicious beer he’s ever had. He wipes the grain hulls from his teeth, then licks them off his finger and chews them. The boys do the same. With new beer the hulls have the consistency of cooked nuts. That’s what they say, at least. No one uses straws till the beer is at least a month old and the hulls have become soggy mash.
Ava’s sad that the others aren’t using straws anymore. But she and I still use them. She takes our used straws and sets them carefully on a shelf. In the morning she’ll sit outside in the grass and weave them into pentagrams. She makes a whole goblin cross with just one straw, the most delicate cross imaginable.
They go into the common room, Father and my brothers. Großmutter stays behind in the kitchen, at the table. When I ask her to come, she waves me away, mumbling something I can’t quite catch. So I take Ava by the hand and we go into the common room without her.
Summer nights are a memory now; autumn chills the air. Bertram lights a fire in the warming oven.
“Do you see that?” says Melis. He points.
I look. There’s nothing there. “The fire, you mean?”
He smiles. “Do you see the yellow and orange and red and blue?”
“Sure.”
“Do you see all the colors?” He sits on the floor and looks at the fire intensely. “All of them. All those colors. Even you, even you, Salz, with all the numbers in your head, even you couldn’t count them.”
I remember the piper in the woods saying I couldn’t count the boats in the Bremen harbor. I look again at the fire. It’s an ordinary fire. I pull Ava closer to me.
“Do you see how sharp they are?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Melis. The fire’s like it always is.”
“No, it’s not. Are you blind? Look. Look at the colors.”
Ludolf laughs. “I can see it eve
n with my eyes closed.” And his eyes are closed. He stands like a post, both arms hanging close against his sides. “Blue, blue, blue.”
They’re playing a game with me. I don’t get the point of it, unless the point is just to leave me out. They’ve left me out even more than usual since Ava came. The way they’ve been acting, you’d think they were jealous. But they don’t even talk to Ava; to them she isn’t here. So it’s no wonder she pays them no attention either. Sometimes she’s so noiseless I get the sense that no one really sees her except Großmutter and me. And maybe that’s not bad, for I believe she enjoys being invisible. She never looks more calm than when she’s in the midst of hustle and bustle with no one giving her the least heed.
I look at Bertram, sitting in a chair. He’s not part of the game, which surprises me, since he’s usually the first one to leave me out. Father’s sitting too, but he’s leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees. He looks annoyed. Maybe he’ll put a stop to this idiotic talk.
“Knife tongues,” says Melis. His words slur a little.
“Speak right,” I say. “I know you’re not drunk. You had only two mugs.”
“Knnnniiiiifffffe,” says Melis. His face has changed. It’s flattened somehow. He seems to be in a trance. Really. I’ve seen it before; our coven’s supreme head sometimes goes into a trance when he’s chanting. If Melis is faking, he’s faking good.
“Knife tongues,” says Ludolf. He laughs. His eyes are still closed. “Blue knife tongues.” He falls onto his knees, and I know that must have hurt, but he doesn’t flinch and he still doesn’t open his eyes. He sinks back on his bottom, with his legs all cock-eyed. He leans on one hand and stretches his neck toward the fire. “Blue.”
Ava pulls on my hand. That’s her signal that she wants to be picked up. She has to be around four years old, so no one should hold her anymore. But she likes it. And my arms are strong. I lift her now.
“Red, too,” says Melis. He keeps his eyes on the fire as he changes position till he’s lying on his belly. He moves extra slow.
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