The story
A summer in Great-aunt Constance’s workshop.
Chapter 05
Constance on the platform
Great-aunt Constance was waiting for him on the platform. She did not kiss him right away. She looked at him for a long time, her head tilted a little, the way you look at a piece of wood before you know what you will make of it. Then she took his bag and said:
Chapter 08
The workshop, wide view
It smelled good. It smelled of cut wood, fresh sawdust, a little beeswax, and something even sweeter, like old honey. Light came in through a high window, slanting down, and set golden dust dancing in the air. On the floor lay pale wood shavings, curled like little waves. On the wall hung tools, each in its place, each turned the same way — saws with saws, chisels with chisels, planes with planes.
Chapter 30
The hair of wood
Silas nodded. He did not understand all of it, but he felt that it was true.
And there are the chapters we keep for you. The one where the drawer closes at last — and you hear a small click worth sixty years. The one where Silas’s mama takes the box in her hands, a finger on the copper hinges, and stops before opening it — because that box is not hers. And the last, at dawn, where words come to her lips without her knowing where they come from.
That line isn’t on this page. On purpose.
