Free Zel by Donna Jo Napoli Page A

two arcs on each side. He chatters shrilly. The creature is angry at her. Ha! Zel takes another pinchful, squeezes it into a berry shape this time. “Look. A mulberry.” She tosses, and it hits the squirrel on the back. The animal races around to the other side of the tree.
    “Rascal.” Zel laughs. She jerks her chin forward and cocks her head, just like the squirrel did. “You are better than the racing marmots and the stiff-bristled boars and the nervous hares. When I call to them, no matter how sweetly, they scurry into the underbrush. You are much, much better.” Zel whistles.
    The squirrel peeks out.
    “And you are better than blackbirds and larks. They ignore my whistles—or, at most, glide for a wingbeat or two.” Zel whistles and whistles and whistles.
    The squirrel comes around to the close side of the trunk.
    Zel puts her elbows on the ledge and leans forward. Her feet dangle under her. “Rascal,” she sings out. Her voice is clear as mountain water. “Talk to me.”
    The squirrel darts around to the rear of the trunk again.
    “Rascal,” sings Zel. “Rascal, Rascal, Rascal.”
    And still the squirrel is absent.
    Zel is alone. For one moment she had company. Now she is alone again. Alone and alone and alone.
    “Coward!” Zel realizes she has shouted. Her pulse beats in her neck. She has shouted many times, shouted until she lost her voice—and never without fear. For her enemy could do terrible things if he found her.
    Zel has gone over every moment she’s ever spent with people other than Mother. Every moment of her life that she remembers. Oh, she lured a straying cow onto their alm once, just so she could talk with the herd boy. But he wasn’t angry. He even told her stories. And she once stole a piece of wood the handyman’s son had been whittling on. But after he gave her the cave rock, she managed to slip the wood back into the handyman’s cart. He never even knew she stole it or he wouldn’t have given her the cave rock.
    No one anywhere should harbor ill will toward Zel. No one anywhere has Zel harmed.
    So who is this terrible enemy?
    Zel shouts again: “Come into view, coward enemy!” A bush at the base of a pine rustles. “I’m ready for you!” Zel points at the bush.
    The wind rises. The bush moves, as do all the other bushes, as do the trees.
    A flash of black and a birdcall. It is musical, not the harsh caw of a crow. It sounds like the chough, the highest flier of the Alps. What would that sublime bird be doing so low? In her wanderings above the tree line Zel has watched choughs ride the wind upward, then suddenly tumble and twist and somersault for the pure joy of it. The call of the rare bird now feels like a beckoning.
    The urge to run grips her. “I am a mountain girl. I need the open.” She makes the Jauchzer, the modulated yell common to the people of her mountains. She learned by mimicking the herd boys.
    Zel hears no responding Jauchzer. Incipient panic burns her eyes. She needs responses.
    She looks at the shrunken walnut branches. If they would only stretch out to her, she could coax the squirrel into her room the next time it comes around. But Zel cannot make the walnut grow like Mother can. Mother has a way with plants, an amazing, powerful way.
    And Mother says that Zel will have a way with animals when she is ready. She says Zel will be able to talk with animals. Zel longs for that.
    She dips her brush and paints the squirrel nibbling furiously at a dough pellet. The tail is poised for flight. Zel paints an ear, each hair separate, coming to a single sharp point.

Chapter 13
Konrad
    he fall air pokes Konrad like the needles of evergreens. He feels snappish and half wild.
    Three months have passed without satisfaction. But at least they have passed without interference from his parents. The changing church took care of that. The church police have been busy purging the town. They strip altars, they smash organs, they break the stained-glass windows. The count