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my childhood. I stood in the crowds and watched penitents on hands and knees, throwing ashes backward over their heads, calling for mercy and forgiveness. As if there really were mercy and forgiveness in this world. Will the goose yield? Is her heart as much rock as the eggs she gathers to her nest each summer?
    She must yield. She must not be so merciless. Zel needs to see that the goose can love this foreign egg, this borrowed egg, with as much fervor—no, with more fervor—than its own mother. Zel needs that.
    I need that.
    I can barely breathe. Zel’s hands move closer and closer to the nest edge. The bird must not attack Zel. If it does, Zel could drop the egg.
    A morning glory vine creeps up the slope by the stream. It has almost reached the level of the bridge. I concentrate on that vine. The vine, energized and strong, twists and lengthens and curls itself across the ground and into the goose nest from behind, where neither Zel nor I can see it. It twines around the goose’s feet, her folded legs. It holds the bird fast. I stumble back a step from the effort of growing the vine.
    The goose spreads her wings full width. She opens her mouth, and her blue-gray tongue stands isolated, trilling the loud hiss. But she cannot rise.
    Zel sets the egg on the inner curve of the nest. It rolls over once and rests against the goose’s exposed side. Then Zel crawls backward and finally stands. She and I turn and walk toward the cottage.
    I close my eyes. The goose gives up struggling. The morning glory shrinks away to the slope from which it came. I open my eyes.

Chapter 7
Zel
    el stands at the window and watches the goose rearrange the sticks of her nest. She is as wordless as the egg. Zel knows much about birds. She has spent whole days watching them. Birds accept each other’s eggs all the time. And geese, they love anything round. Zel cannot comprehend the goose’s behavior.
    But it is not the goose that matters. All Zel can think of now is the egg, this blameless egg that would have been a hatchling soon if Zel had not asked the youth to bring it to her, this egg that Zel may have doomed in her stupidity. Mother gives Zel too much credit. She told Zel to make the goose accept the egg. But Zel doesn’t know how to coax this goose. Still, the goose allowed Zel to return the egg to the nest. There is room for hope.
Please, goose
, Zel begs in her head,
know this egg. For all that is good and beautiful and true, please.
    The goose rocks herself, settling deeper into the nest. Zel is encouraged. If only she could speak to the goose with her mind.
Goose
, she says in her head in easy rhythm,
goose goose goose.
The goose stretches her neck out to the heat of the sun. She seems to sleep.
    Zel turns and goes back to the table. The urge to draw seizes her more ferociously than before. She bendsover her work. A skinny donkey dances in the center of the paper. He has knobby, hairless knees, as though he knelt often. She draws a second donkey extending his muzzle to gladioli in a market stall.
    Now she draws a boy who selects a flower for the donkey, his head cocked, his eyes teasing. Zel remembers the youth of yesterday, the clean curve to his jaw. And he had a dimple on only one cheek. His left.
    Mother goes outside, carrying the egg basket. Zel lifts her head to watch her go. Normally the chore of gathering eggs falls on Zel. But Mother does it now. Zel knows Mother will also feed the rabbits. Whenever Zel is sad, Mother bustles about in this way. Mother does these chores now as a comfort to Zel, for she knows the fear Zel feels for the gosling.
    Mother fears, too. Zel heard it in her voice. Zel leans over the cup with the edelweiss and gently brushes her cheek against the delicate petals. Then she walks over to the bowl of rising dough. She punches it down. There is a daring in her action: Normally she would ask Mother before interfering in something Mother had begun. Raisins form a pile beside the dough. Zel’s hands are