Hello, Universe

by Erin Entrada Kelly

I know the woods like the back of my hand. I know there’s a special clearing where groundhogs come out at dusk. I know there’s an old abandoned water well that’s missing its rope and pail, which tells me that the woods used to be an empty field where someone had a house, which means that the trees are young, as least as far as trees go. There are sycamore, pin oaks, and poplars. I know there’s a cluster of trees with leaves that turn brilliant shades of yellow in the fall.

Valencia knows a lot about the woods. I expect this to be useful later on. Authors often give characters different skill sets to build in balance.

“That’s the problem. People don’t want to listen to their thoughts, so they fill the world with noise.”

Seems like people preventing themselves from growing

Lilliput is the name of an island from a book called Gulliver’s Travels. In the book, the explorer, Lemuel Gulliver, travels to all these different lands after a shipwreck.

This connects Valencia and Virgil