Edmund\u2019s stomach rumbles.<\/p>\n
He wakes.<\/p>\n
He stares at the ceiling as the hunger washes across him in great waves. In between the great waves are little trembling motions. His body vibrates with them. He thinks that he has them under control; but no sooner does he think that then he realizes that that is just the sinking before the swell. There is a great need rising in him.<\/p>\n
He goes to the window. He stares out at the moon. He points at the moon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have your number, moon,\u201d he says, even though he doesn\u2019t. \u201cI\u2019ll eat you too. One day. You\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are students \u2014 food \u2014<\/p>\n
There are foodents<\/i> walking in the quad below. He realizes how easy it would be to eat them all. His heart pounds so vigorously that he feels like he has splinters.<\/p>\n
He slips out the window onto the roof.<\/p>\n
He isn\u2019t really going to eat them, he tells himself. He\u2019s not a cannibal. He\u2019s not really hungry. Besides, if he eats them all, he\u2019ll be too full for breakfast.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t you want breakfast?<\/i> he chides his stomach. Pop-tarts, oatmeal, cafeteria workers, mm<\/i>m!<\/p>\n
They are standing around him. They are staring at him. They have gathered on the roof, they in their yellow hats.<\/p>\n
It distracts him.<\/p>\n
He waves at them dismissively. \u201cGo \u2018way. Brooding.\u201d<\/p>\n
They do not dismiss.<\/p>\n
He cannot remember why he was on the roof. Shouldn\u2019t he be sleeping? He has examinations soon. It is bad for his health to be sitting out on the roof under the moon.<\/p>\n
Why are they staring at me? It\u2019s so creepy!<\/i><\/p>\n
He waves them off again. Then he growls. He fixes Morgan with his wolf-glare and the boy almost falls off the roof.<\/p>\n
He is on his feet then. He staggers towards them.<\/p>\n
They dissipate. They slip backwards in great bounds, now on the ceiling tiles near him, now perched on a chimney and a TV antenna, now twisting under and in and through the windows onto the floor below. He looks around and they are fading almost faster than he can focus on them with his eyes. He cannot track them, save \u2014<\/p>\n
He slams the retreating Emily with the wolf-stare. His eyes are white as the moon. She falls on her butt, silently; her hand comes up to her mouth in an oh!<\/i><\/p>\n
He lunges.<\/p>\n
Her eyes are gold as he reaches her: they are like two rising suns. They transfix him. They melt him. They stun him. But he is already on top of her, and he is half again her weight.<\/p>\n
He pins her to the roof.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s this?\u201d he asks her. \u201cWhat\u2019re you staring <\/i>for, huh? Come to mock the wolf-boy, have you?\u201d<\/p>\n
She shakes her head.<\/p>\n
Waves of confusion and weakness wash across him. He grits his teeth.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re doing something to me,\u201d he says. He has a knife in his hand now. He\u2019d gotten it in his orientation packet. It\u2019s a wooden-handled blade, suitable for killing wolves and men and teenaged girls. He holds it against her neck. \u201cYou\u2019re doing something. Cut it out<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n
She closes her eyes.<\/p>\n
Slowly confidence returns to him. His heartbeat slows, and he stops hearing it. The fog seems to fade from his mind.<\/p>\n
The others are staring at him, he can feel it, but they are too far away to daze him.<\/p>\n
They are staying back.<\/p>\n
She says something, very quietly. He can\u2019t make it out.<\/p>\n
He pulls the knife from her throat. He bends down to hear her.<\/p>\n
She whispers a word: a name: a thing of jaguars, that are on fire, and love, and purpose, that no human could ever say. It burns and writhes in his head: he recoils from it, he screams, he bends his hands around his head and he tries to un-hear that name but he cannot. It winds through and around his brain like a length of razored thread.<\/p>\n
She is on her feet again. She is staring at him and he cannot think; he is drowning in it; if there is any comfort to it, it is only that the name she has whispered seems to be fading away into the same static of confusion as is he.<\/p>\n
When he wakes the real sun beats down upon the roof around him.<\/p>\n
His stomach rumbles but it is a normal hunger; and he wipes tears he can\u2019t remember shedding from his eyes and staggers off to get a tea or coffee and some bread.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s Emily,\u201d says Linus. \u201cShe studies bindings.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWitch,\u201d mutters Edmund.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019re you gonna do?\u201d says Linus. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to have people to do the bindings for those things that you cannot kill.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rage whitens Edmund\u2019s eyes. He hunches in on himself, lets it beat through him, and does not say anything that will hurt Linus Evans, whom he loves.<\/p>\n
After a moment, Linus understands.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry, bro,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Even later, Edmund whispers, \u201cI didn\u2019t really want to be in chains.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Edmund\u2019s stomach rumbles. He wakes. He stares at the ceiling as the hunger washes across him in great waves. In between the great waves are little trembling motions. His body vibrates with them. He thinks that he has them under control; but no sooner does he think that then he realizes that that is just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"series":[47],"class_list":["post-5285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-storm-that-saw-itself-chapter-4","series-the-storm-that-saw-itself"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Hat_4_nobg.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5285"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6140,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5285\/revisions\/6140"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5285"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=5285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}