And after a while, she rolls over on the ocean \u2014<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know if she can do this because she is a trained fighter; or because of St. Peter\u2019s blessing; or because she is a saint \u2014<\/p>\n
And the laughter has gone from her, and a wild mood is on her, and she is explaining herself to the nithrid because, well, to who else?<\/p>\n
She is saying, \u201cI made a hat, you know. After Tom\u2019s hat \u2014<\/p>\n
\u201cI made one of my own.\u201d<\/p>\n
The nithrid is fire in the sky. It is a world-devouring storm. It is wind and rain and the flickering of lightning.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a space beyond the world,\u201d she says, \u201cwhere someone trained in the ninja arts may go; and a space beyond that<\/em>, where hope is locked in a wardrobe, and you can bend it down with the power in you and make it into clothing or a hat.\u201d<\/p>\n The nithrid is not interested in millinery.<\/p>\n If ever it had the power to impress others by rocking a hat and a bit of modern fashion, it lacks that power now.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I took the substance of that place and made a hat that had no equal in the world; and it was red, red, red, to match my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n She listens to her heart. It is beating.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd it was a hat of the substance of happy endings,\u201d says she. \u201cIt was the hat that says: in this world, things will be OK.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIf you are good and strong, Bethany.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIf you seize it, Bethany.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIf you will fight for what is worth fighting for, and do what a Bethany ought to do, and live, and love, and linger well, then everything will end OK. No matter what.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cTo be a person in the world \u2014 it is to be enough.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019ll be OK.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n The nithrid ponders this. It makes sculptures out of lightning on the sea.<\/p>\n \u201cThen Edmund ate it,\u201d Bethany says. \u201cHe took it from my head and ate it.\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019s lost the last of the laughter now. She is crying.<\/p>\n What a jerk!<\/p>\n The nithrid doesn\u2019t know what to do about this. It thinks about killing her. Instead it tries to wipe her tears. This does not work out well for anybody. It is extremely embarrassing for the nithrid. After a while it finds a silver crown floating past under the sea and spends a while trying to fish that<\/em> up instead.<\/p>\n Why would you even do that? Bethany can\u2019t wear a silver hat!<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t you understand?\u201d Bethany says. \u201cIf the world is wrong, then there\u2019s nothing I can do. If the world is wrong then I\u2019m just broken. I can\u2019t make<\/em> there be hope. I had that power. For a few minutes I had that power. Then he took it.\u201d<\/p>\n The nithrid comes to a conclusion. It abandons the crown. It seethes in the sky and ocean.<\/p>\n It writes on the surface of the water:<\/p>\n DANCE WITH ME.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n Bethany is distracted.<\/p>\n \u201cHe took<\/em> it,\u201d she re-explains.<\/p>\n The letters trace themselves out another time or two, and then they\u2019re gone.<\/p>\n And like I\u2019ve said, this isn\u2019t the story of how the nithrid redeemed itself, because it didn\u2019t; it was all and ever only the nithrid. And it\u2019s not the story of how it didn\u2019t redeem itself either. It\u2019s just \u2014<\/p>\n She is Bethany \u2014 St. Bethany, I suppose \u2014 and it is the nithrid.<\/p>\n After a while she dries her tears. She looks up at it.<\/p>\n He took it<\/em>. But \u2014<\/p>\n The lightning comes down at her; it strikes at her from Heaven.<\/p>\n She catches it. She moves with it.<\/p>\n She flies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" And after a while, she rolls over on the ocean \u2014 I don\u2019t know if she can do this because she is a trained fighter; or because of St. Peter\u2019s blessing; or because she is a saint \u2014 And the laughter has gone from her, and a wild mood is on her, and she is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"series":[50],"class_list":["post-5562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vidars-boot-chapter-2","series-vidars-boot"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Icon_Andrea_NoBG.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562","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=5562"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6085,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562\/revisions\/6085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5562"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=5562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}