Gathering Blue

At the start of Chapter 6, Kira meets Matt and Branch on the steps of the Council Edifice, and he promises to wait while she goes in to find out where she’ll be living. He insists on carrying her things for her “because of her horrid gimp” (64). When Kira goes in, she finds Jamison waiting for her. Since her new home is in the Council Edifice, Matt and Branch are called in and they make the short trip to her new room. Matt and Branch wait in the corridor so “the wee buggies” (68)—Branch’s fleas—don’t infest the room. The room is a wonder to Kira, with a bed instead of a straw pallet, several tables, and a glass window that looks out onto the forest. A closet drawer holds the carefully folded Singer’s robe, and other drawers are full of supplies for her work. She also has her own bathroom, which she finds confusing, having always done her bathroom business outside.

Jamison tells her that Thomas the Carver lives down the hall, and then shows Matt and Branch out while Kira settles in. That night, she finds it difficult to sleep in the moonlit room and thinks about the things Matt saved for her from her cott: her threading frame, some healing herbs, some food (which she won’t need since all her meals are provided for her by the Council), her mother’s shawl and skirt, as well as her pendant—“a shiny section of rock, split cleanly down one side but studded with shiny purple on the other and with a hole to allow for the thong” (73)—a gift to Kira’s mother from her father.