He feels like a bird, above the ground, resting on nothing but air. He is not of this place but above it, apart from it, observing it. It brings to mind, for him, the wind-hovering kestrel his wife used to keep, and the way it would hold itself in high currents, far above the tree tops, wings outstretched, looking down on all around it. - P294
Agnes cannot help herself. She turns in her saddle and sees: drooping grey clouds pierced by long poles, shuddering in the breeze, topped by things that look, for a moment, like stones or turnips. She squints at them. They are blackened, ragged, oddly lumpish. They give off, to her, a thin, soundless wail, like trapped animals. Whatever can they be? Then she sees that the one nearest her seems to have a row of teeth set into it. They have mouths, she realises, and nostrils, and pitted sockets where eyes once were. - P297
|