RAMPION IN THE BELLTOWER by Merrie Haskell page 2/8
When dusk settled, the smoke of the cooking fires rose once more to the high windows of the tower, and the screams of the eaten began again. The grandfather woke from a nap with his hands dancing across his lap. He had dreamed of beating the batons and making the bells sing.
Rampion left the window where she watched the feasts of the plague-dead, and seated herself on the floor beside her grandfather, resting her damp cheek against his benumbed knee. He stroked her hair until she fell into a troubled sleep, watching over the bonfires that stained the night orange.
Near midnight, a sound from the western parapet froze the grandfather's blood. Please, God--. His prayer stopped there because he did not know how to continue, and he was certain that one of the plague-dead had scaled the tower to devour them. The grandfather's muscles gathered and bunched, but the strength faded away before it came; he had not walked in ten years, but sometimes his legs forgot, just for a moment.
Clack, clack. At the entrance to the parapet, the shape of a tall white bird appeared, standing with one wing extended. A stork.
"Hai!" the grandfather cried, but the bird did not fly away. It strode over to him, staring into his face. Then, like Rampion, and Rampion's mother before her, the bird knelt and rested her cheek against his knee.
"Gothel?" he whispered. He reached out, brushing the bird's crest with his fingertips. She turned dark, bright eyes to him, double-clacking her beak. "Oh, my daughter," he said, his voice breaking.
The bird clacked again. He nodded. "I forgot. Storks are mute. Muteness is very inconvenient in a messenger from beyond the grave."
His daughter flew into the rafters and tucked her head beneath one wing to sleep.
