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Chapter 4: The Finest in Tower Living

Chapter 4: The Finest in Tower Living Wynn and Lina’s rooms were next to each other and high up in a tower that formed part of the honeycomb structure of the Hoo. On the doors to the rooms hung blackboards and chalk.  The only windows available were small skylights that let in little shafts of light from the ceiling.   “It’s like a grotto!”  Wynn exclaimed with delight.   Indeed, the walls were made of softly rounded stone, and little pockets in the stone provided shelves for storage.  The bed in each room was high up above stacks of drawers, and a rope ladder hung down for easy access.  The soft light from the ceiling illuminated the counter-top of a desk built into a deeper stone pocket across from the bed. Lina wasn’t quite as pleased.  “This room is so dark and small!” she moaned. “There is no view at all!” But there is plenty of fresh air,” Wynn piped up. “It’s blowing through these little vents in the walls, see?” ...
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Chapter 3: Valdoyzahost

Chapter 3: Valdoyzahost As this party of five glided down the river, short and tall, so-called “river-rats” and confused girls, Wynn was paying attention to as much as possible all at once.   Every direction she looked from her seat in the pount, green, comfy, bumpety hills rose up like pillows.   The mist in the air made everything indistinct and hazy only a hundred feet away.   Now and then, a cute red tile roof would poke up through the brush.   She liked the quaintness of it all.  And the fog makes everything seem downright enchanted. The waterway began to curve to the right around a steep yellow cliff, and then, just past it, a stone dock appeared out of the mist; it sat at the bottom of a steep hill lined with a sort of metal track that ran up and into the fog-banks.    As they pulled up, Lina shivered.   The mildewed, wet feeling to the air and the general stillness all around them made her feel uneasy. She wondered what s...
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Chapter 2: Going Sideways

Chapter 2: Going Sideways Mingya pah-treeya dagwah, Ohsh mehoosh oh-yos a-fah-go a kay meal noytesh deh sonaar… Lina could feel it building up again. She closed her eyes. That bubble in her chest, as if she had eaten a piece of raw potato and it had stuck in her craw. At least singing was a way to push a little bit of it out of her body, that bubble of hurt. If she couldn’t actually be there, at least she could still try to sing out its spirit. She tried to make every word as true as she could, like she was trying to make the place come to her, since she couldn’t go to it. And then Wynn went to grab the rain-globe back. For a moment, both of their hands overlapped as they each grasped at it. As she did so, though, she couldn’t help but wish that the moment wouldn’t quite end there, because it was a nice change from the usual.   And Lina couldn’t finish – she was roughly interrupted by some kind of whooshing sound, and a whirling feeling, a rush of damp, dank air. ...
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