{"id":5902,"date":"2015-12-20T19:20:14","date_gmt":"2015-12-21T02:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/?p=5902"},"modified":"2016-04-07T15:17:33","modified_gmt":"2016-04-07T22:17:33","slug":"7-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/?p=5902","title":{"rendered":"– 7 –"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve quit,<\/em> Emily insists, but quitting\u2019s difficult. She can\u2019t sleep at night, or get through more than a few hours of the daytime, unless she has something <\/em>yellow on her head.<\/p>\n

When she does manage to sleep, she dreams troubled dreams.<\/p>\n

Then she wakes up and she looks in the mirror and she sees Gotterdammerung staring back.<\/p>\n

Because you failed<\/em>, says the voice of obsession in her head. Because you stopped. Because you would not contain Tom and Cheryl and their folly. Because you would not contain Edmund and his hunger.<\/em><\/p>\n

She tries to think of Sid and Sid\u2019s new freedom but she can\u2019t. Her thoughts are mazed.<\/p>\n

She cries.<\/p>\n

Her grades plummet. She seeks counseling but the school counselors cannot help her. They can only encourage her to study hard and kill really big wolves. (For legal reasons: if that\u2019s what she, of course, independently, considers best.)<\/em><\/p>\n

She wanders into a diner.<\/p>\n

She orders lunch.<\/p>\n

Lucy\u2019s sitting there. Lucy\u2019s casting the runes. She\u2019s casting them over and over again and frowning like she doesn\u2019t want whatever it is that the future holds.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s got a tiny little hat on. It\u2019s kind of goofy. But it makes Emily, who\u2019s replaced her own hat with the smallest of yellow hairpins, smile in solidarity across the room.<\/p>\n

Lucy grins at her. Then Lucy scowls hatefully at her.<\/p>\n

Lucy Souvante turns away.<\/p>\n

Somewhere else, Harold has an insight. It\u2019s an appalling insight that people shouldn\u2019t have. He tries to write it down before it escapes him. It\u2019s a complicated spiral of mathematics and ideas and he\u2019ll lose it all if he forgets \u2014<\/p>\n

The call almost startles Emily to her feet.<\/p>\n

She clings to the leg of her table. She shudders so as not to rise.<\/p>\n

It is like elevator music in the air around her. It is like Barry Manilow ballading on the sitar. It is like a cheerful twanging, distant and strange. It is a ballad Emily hears not with her ears but with her heart.<\/p>\n

It summons <\/em>her. It calls her to go and stand in a creepy circle around Harold, to make sure that he darn well forgets.<\/p>\n

She grits her teeth. She ignores it.<\/p>\n

It pulls at her. Her face is white. She splashes her glass of water in her face, she gets ice in a chilly trail down her top and is quite afraid that she has ruined her makeup utterly, even though she hasn\u2019t, and she tries so very hard not to heed the call.<\/p>\n

She trembles.<\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t run off to stand in a creepy circle around Harold.<\/p>\n

Suddenly it occurs to her that possibly that is the meaning of Lucy\u2019s runes. Lucy is, after all, a prophet. Possibly the world is going to go up in flames and die and be lost forever right now <\/em>because Emily is sitting there and not answering the call. Possibly she is the worst person in the world ever. She has to go \u2014<\/p>\n

She is halfway out the door, and then she remembers that she hasn\u2019t paid her bill.<\/p>\n

She remembers that self-fulfilling prophecies that everything is going to be OK don\u2019t<\/em> make people frown in irritation and frustration.<\/p>\n

She remembers Navvy Jim saying \u201cYou should not have your yellow, yellow hat, Emily, nor be in your yellow House.\u201d<\/p>\n

She drags herself, step by step, back to her table.<\/p>\n

You should not have your yellow, yellow hat, Emily, nor be in your yellow House.<\/em><\/p>\n

She shudders there. She sits.<\/p>\n

After a while it recedes.<\/p>\n

After a while there\u2019s a different kind of call. She picks up her cell phone. She puts it to her ear.<\/p>\n

\u201cYo,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmily,\u201d Lirabelle disapproves. \u201cYou didn\u2019t show!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was eating,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe missed you,\u201d says Fred.<\/p>\n

Emily squints at Fred.<\/p>\n

\u201cFred,\u201d she says, \u201cI am trying to impose the context of a phone call on this conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a conference call,\u201d he hand-waves.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBesides,\u201d says Fred, \u201cjust because some <\/em>of us like to hold phones to ears while we talk to the rest of the House doesn\u2019t mean I should respect it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want you all to leave me alone,\u201d Emily says.<\/p>\n

She puts her head down on the table.<\/p>\n

People are staring at her. They are angry that she is on a cell phone even though it didn\u2019t ring audibly and she isn\u2019t talking aloud. They are very aware that she is dripping water from the glass of it she splashed on her face and on her front. It embarrasses her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to not have to do this any more,\u201d she pleads.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then there will be Gotterdammerung,\u201d Morgan points out.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d says Fred. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to be responsible for the world ending when you could hang out with cool people like us instead, do you? That\u2019s like getting hit by a boomerang up both ends!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Going both ways,\u2019\u201d says Emily. \u201cThe phrase is \u2018going both ways.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEnh,\u201d says Fred.<\/p>\n

Emily sighs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just \u2014\u201d she says. \u201cI just \u2014 you saw him, right? Sid?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not our job to take sides between cannibals and . . . masochists?\u201d says Fred, after a while.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw,\u201d says Lirabelle.<\/p>\n

\u201cOr rather, we\u2019re on the side of the masochists! Go, Sid!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just swell, Fred,\u201d says Emily.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are a hard person to eavesdrop on,\u201d says Saul, \u201cyou know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emily looks up.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s seated across from her. He\u2019s grinning. His teeth and his eyes are white. The power of his new House is in him. Somewhere the jangling sitar of the call rings out, louder and louder and more frantic.<\/p>\n

Oh, God,<\/em> she thinks.<\/p>\n

For a moment she imagines that they will abandon her. For a moment she thinks that it is only natural and logical that because she waited out the last call, she will be eaten. Because she wears not a yellow hat but only a little yellow butterfly pin in her hair \u2014 that she will be eaten.<\/p>\n

Naturally.<\/p>\n

She has rejected them so they will not show \u2014<\/p>\n

But there is a miracle held to Saul: he is still graced, and so is she. As suddenly as the sight of a butterfly on a summer\u2019s day, Fred is there; and Lirabelle; and Veronica; Morgan, too; all of them, all the members of the Keepers\u2019 House.<\/p>\n

Guys,<\/em> Emily silents, in profound relief.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t look at me, <\/em>teases Fred. I am trying to impose the context of a TV show upon this intervention.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m breaking the fourth wall! <\/em>she says, even though in fact she\u2019s just looking out through the window glass at Fred.<\/p>\n

They have drifted into the scene from unknown places. They stand outside the glass; against the bar; by the door. They watch events unfold.<\/p>\n

Saul raps the table for her attention.<\/p>\n

She thumbs her amplifier. She says, aloud, \u201cI\u2019d thought you were a saint.\u201d<\/p>\n

His face twitches.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou keep track?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a fan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHm,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He pulls out the salt and pepper shakers. He sets them on the table between the two of them. He smiles at her.<\/p>\n

\u201cHello,\u201d he says. \u201cMy name is Saul. I was sorted into the House of Hunger, but it was my second sorting; before that I was a saint. We were three; we were two; now we are one, and I think Peter shall not endure much longer. You have been a trouble to my brothers and sisters in Hunger. You stand around creepily and distract us when we want to eat. More importantly, you interfere with Edmund\u2019s understanding and breaking the chain that holds Fenris Wolf.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not true,\u201d says Emily.<\/p>\n

Hunger surges in his eyes. It\u2019s like a blow. She shrinks back against her seat.<\/p>\n

But, but, I was <\/em>quitting, I was quitting \u2014<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is your turn to introduce yourself,\u201d Saul says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy name is Emily,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Oh God, oh God, oh God.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI was quitting,\u201d she whispers.<\/p>\n

Saul looks around.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd yet they defend you,\u201d he says. \u201cHow noble. How awkward.\u201d<\/p>\n

He bares his teeth. He moves, suddenly, towards Lirabelle.<\/p>\n

Lirabelle is no longer leaning against the bar. Lirabelle is outside, on the street, on the other side of the street, still looking in.<\/p>\n

Saul isn\u2019t even out of his seat. He laughs.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease,\u201d says Emily. \u201cWhat do you want? I don\u2019t want to fight you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA long time ago,\u201d says Saul, referring to late in the previous year, \u201ca boy named Tom made a hat. He thought that he was making a hat to free his mind, but is his mind freed? No. So we can safely rule that out as his ultimate purpose. He made a hat, in order that the wolf could be unchained.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emily shakes her head.<\/p>\n

Saul is quiet. He waits long enough for her to have a sudden thought; to lift a finger, as if to make a point \u2014<\/p>\n

He interrupts her. \u201cYou are thinking: but most of what the hat does has a different purpose, and it has created things that appear to actively oppose the freedom of the wolf.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

He rubs at the back of his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do wish they would stop staring,\u201d he asides. \u201cThis is becoming very difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pressure lightens for a moment. Fred pretends to be paying a great deal of attention to the specials, which are posted on the outside of the diner\u2019s door. Morgan is tying his shoes. Lirabelle is on the phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy,\u201d says Saul.<\/p>\n

Emily shrugs a little.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour point is irrelevant,\u201d Saul says. \u201cI will explain myself further: it is natural. It is natural for anything, for anyone, who is destined for a certain activity to spend a great deal of their time fighting it, denying it. It is . . . almost the nature of purpose, do you understand? To live, to strive, is to be your own worst enemy. Where we dream, where we hope, where we hunger, we push these things against the world. This forms a . . . limning. A rip. An edge. From that edge arise monsters: things which are opposing our purpose. Make a hat to free the wolf: create Sid, whose willing suffering helps chain it; make you Keepers in your yellow hats, whose staring eyes do the same. To act is to create opposition. \u2014 You see?\u201d<\/p>\n

He traces patterns in the table with his finger.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world demands that you be slaughtered and eaten,\u201d he says, with a gentle smile. \u201cBut you struggle against that, and in so doing create such torments for yourself as \u2018fear\u2019 and \u2018pain\u2019 and \u2018suffering.\u2019 Will you live? Will you die? Either way you have bound yourself in your own boxes; created your own chains; given birth to your own enemies. It is not my teeth you fear but the shadow-self of your own dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n

She looks away.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou offer your neck?\u201d says Saul.<\/p>\n

She glares back at him, and her eyes gleam gold, and he shudders. His thoughts fall into confusion. He grits his teeth. Then he finds a place of deep calm within him, under the gales of confusion, and says:<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to make you an offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cGive up your suffering,\u201d he says. \u201cLay down your power and your chains. Give yourselves to us; we will make an end to you; we will break the thing that makes you suffer, and your willingness will lathe away the pain. And then there will be no yellow House to bear witness to the wrong we do, and Fenris \u2014 no. Not Fenris. All bound and tormented, captive things. <\/em>All our monsters, our hungers, and our prisoners, we will let them free.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d she whispers.<\/p>\n

He reaches out for her. The hunger in him is drowning her. His hand is on her cheek, despite the glare of her. \u201cEverybody wins,\u201d says Saul, of the House of Hunger, and somehow that breaks the spell on her. Suddenly the fear in her tumbles past fear into a wild place of freedom and she grins at him, so brilliant and bright.<\/p>\n

He winces. Her eyes burn like the sun.<\/p>\n

Joy runs through her, and she leans in, and she tells him, very softly, \u201cI don\u2019t want to be eaten.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPardon?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you get it? I don\u2019t like you. I liked Sid. Sid was OK. But I don\u2019t like you people and your \u2018sometimes the way to free people is to kill them.\u2019 I took off my own damned hat. I don\u2019t need<\/em> you. And I\u2019ll be damned if I\u2019m going to die at the maw of some hungry saint. I\u2019m not going to be your lunch, Saul. Order a sandwich or something. They\u2019ve got cheesecake. I <\/em>\u2014 I\u2019m going to live a long time, and dance the Thunder Dance, and die in a beautiful place, surrounded by something wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is too close. She grabs him by the ears. She slams his face into the salt and pepper, prompting an unpleasant bout of dizziness and sneezing. She flits to her feet.<\/p>\n

He tries to get up but they are staring <\/em>at him.<\/p>\n

Their eyes are gold and they are dizzying him and he is struggling, he is staggering, he cannot remember who he is, where he is, there is something he is clutching, something he is holding tight inside him, something precious, but his spiritual hands, they start to slip \u2014<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have been corrupted,\u201d Emily says. \u201cYou have been damaged<\/em> by the hat, Saul. I\u2019m so sorry, but you\u2019ve been damaged. Your brain wasn\u2019t a good fit for it. You weren\u2019t a good fit for it. The hat doesn\u2019t want to free the wolf. The purpose <\/em>of hats isn\u2019t to free the wolf. The purpose of a hat is to keep wolves bound<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

His head is ringing like a xylophone that somebody\u2019s playing. His world is streaked with red, with yellow, and with white.<\/p>\n

She is standing. She is turning. She is leaving. Saul cannot think <\/em>\u2014<\/p>\n

Fred is gone.<\/p>\n

Emily looks over sharply. Her brain cannot parse it.<\/p>\n

Lirabelle is gone. Veronica is gone.<\/p>\n

Saul clutches tighter at his miracle. His head begins to clear.<\/p>\n

Morgan \u2014<\/p>\n

Run!<\/em> screams Emily. She thumbs her marvelous speech amplifier. \u201cRun!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

It booms across the block. People are scattering. The Keepers\u2019 House disperses, leaving only Emily, Saul, and their dead; and, sitting on the floor, gnawing thoughtfully on Lirabelle\u2019s arm, the Lucy-beast.<\/p>\n

There is a burgeoning breath of pain in Emily. \u201cI \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAh,\u201d says Saul. \u201cI have backup.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you, Lucy,\u201d Saul says.<\/p>\n

Lucy waves a hand vaguely at them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the hell,\u201d says Emily. \u201cWhat \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

Their lives were jewels.<\/em><\/p>\n

She tries to say it. She can\u2019t. She flicks the speech amplifier to maximum volume but there aren\u2019t words in the human voice for this; not words in the human mind for this; she can\u2019t express it. She just sniffles and mouths a silent wordlessness; then, far too quietly even for the speech amplifier to pick up, she speaks the names of her House\u2019s dead.<\/p>\n

Lucy walks over.<\/p>\n

Lucy pats her on the head. Emily\u2019s mouth twists. She is going to tell Lucy a secret. She is going to tell Lucy a brain-shattering secret, speak a forbidden name, shout it, even, leave her to writhe mindless and broken on the floor, and turn, and burst Saul\u2019s mind \u2014<\/p>\n

But Lucy gets there first.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think hats are for anything at all,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

And Lucy is far away again. Lucy is smug, and safe, and she disdains Emily; and Emily\u2019s vision pulses with white and gold confusion and she slumps against the diner\u2019s bar.<\/p>\n

A couple nights later, wandering aimlessly, eyes flickering between their normal blue and gold, she hears the Thunder Dance.<\/p>\n

She slips in to the Konami Thunder Dance club. She watches Meredith duel with Paul.<\/p>\n

There is magic in it and Emily\u2019s eyes almost glow gold; almost suppress <\/em>it, because that\u2019s what she does, that\u2019s what she can\u2019t help<\/em> doing, in her Keepers\u2019 House.<\/p>\n

Only, somehow, that\u2019s left her. Somehow that\u2019s all done. The Symbols stay Symbols. The world is full of change.<\/p>\n

She can\u2019t help wanting <\/em>to bind it down to sanity, almost as much as she wants not to.<\/p>\n

She can\u2019t help wanting<\/em> to bear witness to the idea that somehow, people using the Thunder Dance to hack the world with their footsteps is wrong, that it is bad, that people ought not do such things as dance the Symbol GRAVES and rouse up ghosts.<\/p>\n

But she can\u2019t, and she doesn\u2019t want to, so she doesn\u2019t. She relents. She just watches.<\/p>\n

In the middle of the symbol GRAVES Meredith tries to slip in Dynamite.<\/p>\n

Nothing happens.<\/p>\n

Meredith looks embarrassed. She\u2019s off her game. She had forgotten. That move was bug-fixed.<\/p>\n

And Emily slips off to sleep there, among the unexploded spirits of her dead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve quit, Emily insists, but quitting\u2019s difficult. She can\u2019t sleep at night, or get through more than a few hours of the daytime, unless she has something yellow on her head. When she does manage to sleep, she dreams troubled dreams. Then she wakes up and she looks in the mirror and she sees Gotterdammerung […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"series":[50],"class_list":["post-5902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vidars-boot-chapter-15","series-vidars-boot"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Hat_2_noBG.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5902","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=5902"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5975,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5902\/revisions\/5975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5902"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=5902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}