Beginning to understand
CASPIAN I hear it before I understand it. A crash, a short sharp cry, the specific quality of silence that follows an impact — I am out of my room and moving before my mind has fully processed the sequence. Not thought. Something below thought, the bond pulling me toward the east corridor with an urgency that has bypassed every rational objection I’ve spent weeks constructing and gone directly to my feet. She is on the floor at the base of the library ladder. The ladder itself is toppled beside her, the book she was reaching for splayed open three feet away, its pages bent at an angle that would bother her — I know this about her now, the casual mistreatment of books bothers her. She is sitting up — I check this first. Conscious — I check this second. Holding her arm against her chest
- Writer
