In an Absent Dream

#1 Every Heart a Doorway ★★★★★
#2 Down Among the Sticks and Bones ★★★★★
#3 Beneath the Sugar Sky ★★★★★
#4 In An Absent Dream ???

This, then, was Katherine Victoria Lundy: pretty and patient and practical. Not lonely, because she had never really considered any way of being other than alone. Not gregarious, nor sullen, but somewhere in the middle, happy to speak when spoken to, happy also to carry on in silence, keeping her thoughts tucked quietly away. She was ordinary. She was remarkable.
Of such common place contradictions are weapons made. Katherine Lundy walked in the world. That was quite enough to set everything els

This, then, was Katherine Victoria Lundy: pretty and patient and practical. Not lonely, because she had never really considered any way of being other than alone. Not gregarious, nor sullen, but somewhere in the middle, happy to speak when spoken to, happy also to carry on in silence, keeping her thoughts tucked quietly away. She was ordinary. She was remarkable.
Of such common place contradictions are weapons made. Katherine Lundy walked in the world. That was quite enough to set everything else into motion.

At eight, she had been able to wear dresses or tie ribbons in her hair, or both, without anyone planning to it as proof that she was growing up to be a beautiful little lady. She’d been able to raise her hand in class without being skipped over in favor of the boys, whose answers, although identical to her own, or somehow smarter, more thoughtful, more necessary...
She had been able to find a doorway and disappear into an adventure, instead of living in a world that told her, day after day after grinding, demoralizing day, that adventures were only for boys; that girls had better things to worry about, like making sure those same boys had a safe harbor to come home to.