. . .

“You probably just think you’re supposed to eat people,” Edmund explains furiously, “because of Hans, and then every time you eat someone, you get more invested in the idea, so that you don’t have to face the guilt for all the times before. You’re probably meant to be a super-angel-Heaven wolf and guard little children from awful magical threats.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Edmund says. The scissors haven’t fallen yet. He flails for ideas. “I guess . . . Nessie?”

“Nessie?”

“The Loch Ness monster?”

The wolf gets up. Wincing it adjusts its position. It lays itself back down. It licks at one of the fifty-pound sphere-weights that it occasionally rolls back and forth as toys.

“I will consider the possibility,” says the wolf, “because it entertains me. But I doubt very much that I will agree.”

<< . . .

. . . >>