Zel by Donna Jo Napoli

Author:Donna Jo Napoli [Napoli, Donna Jo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 1998-11-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17Mother

stand and leave quickly, through the window, down the tree. I wait while the tree recedes upon itself, until the tower is once more secure. Zel does not look from the window.

The girl’s penchant for argument grows worse each day. I clench my hands on braids that are no longer there. Zel has luxurious hair. Her braids came firm and reliable under my weaving fingers. Zel’s hair is strong as rope. I have a sudden urge to grab and twine it around my neck as though it were a noose. I think of the hair noose snapping my neck.

I am shocked at my own self-loathing. This emotion has no right to hold me. If I were to die, I’d leave Zel alone in this world. I must never do that. Never.

Zel would not be better off without me. She needs what I am doing.

What am I doing?

I’m preparing my daughter for the choice. There is no other way.

I sit on the ground. The nights have become cold. Yet I cannot allow Zel a hearth for warmth. Though there are no roads on this side of the lake, a hunter might spy a curl of smoke, even in this dense evergreen forest.

The thought of her shivering undoes me. I call upon the ground ivy. I entreat its thin stems. I coax and cajole. From all sides, ivy climbs the tower walls, growing, growing. A swelling tide of green that will hold in warmth, that will stop Zel’s shivering. In winter the snow will catch on wide ivy leaves and blanket the tower further.

I pant as I survey my work. The ivy grows in such profusion that the stones of the tower are no longer seen. From a distance the tower appears as an evergreen tree. Yes. I was worried about some stray person spying the tower now that leaves are falling. Two problems solved at once.

And should that youth stumble upon this green tower—that youth who didn’t fool me, no, he never fooled me, for I saw the searching in his eyes, oh, yes, he must be searching for her now—should he grab at the ivy stems, they will come away in his hands, for they are thin, thin. His searching, his finding, all in vain. I would laugh at my own cleverness. But I do not have the energy. I swoon.

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