Addie Bell was six years old when she first held colored drawing pencils between her uncoordinated fingers and made marks on a crumbling map of the old, flooded tunnels beneath the city.

At first she thought the white cloud floating across the blue sky had an interesting shape, almost like the face of a man.

Niemi misses the whales.

Before she died, Ethel gave Julie a stapled packet of parchment paper, plump and noisy with seeds.

Last fall’s decaying leaves shifted beneath my feet as I crossed the yard.

Tamasin, called Abhasvar, watched from the concealing folds of her hood as the Riever and his men strode into the great hall. For a long, fearful moment she thought the Riever wouldn’t stop, would …