We followed the boy inside. He had played beyond the boundary. The place where we must stay, the place beyond the boundary. But we did not force ourselves past the boundary. No. We followed in his coverings and on the wood cylinder he used to walk. He invited us. He asked for our help. We followed in his pockets and on the back sides of his knees. We cannot pass the barrier ourselves. We must follow. The boy did not see us. The boy did not know, but we followed. We did not disobey.

At first we did not appear to him. We were in our hiding places; we were inside the boundary and that was enough. We slept for days and days. But we woke up, one-by-one he shook us out of his coverings or swung us off the wood cylinder. He did not know. How could he? We did not show ourselves and he was too young to perceive, too immature to understand. And so we waited until his magic showed. And there we fed. We ate away his magic, we ate away his caution, we ate away his ignorance. We did not force ourselves. We followed.

We did not break the rules. We followed. We did not kill him. We were hungry. Starved and unfed we were, beyond the boundary. Inside the boundary there was food. He could not fill us. Our hunger was too great. House by house we went. Person by person we fed. Magic as deep as the wizard’s own. We fed. We followed. We did not force. We obeyed the wizard. We were not wrong. We followed. We were starved. The wizard was wrong to stop us. The wizard was wrong to make the boundary. The wizard’s fault it is. We did not make it. We followed. Put the wizard on trial. The wizard made the boundary. The wizard caused the problem. The wizard starved us. The wizard is to blame.

We ate because we were hungry. We ate because they would not feed us. We ate because the wizard is evil. The wizard made us. The wizard made us hunger. The wizard made the boundary. The wizard starved us. The wizard could not stop our hunger. The wizard himself could not satisfy. We ate him to the bone, and so we followed the boy.

We still hunger…