The Gathering
- Tilja's mama wakes up and tells her, "'It touched me with its horn'" (3.25)—which is pretty much the creepiest thing anyone has ever woken up and said. Tilja has no clue what her mother's talking about.
- While working in the forest, Tilja loses a valuable hand ax—iron is really tricky to find and her family will be ticked off if it goes missing (3.28-29). Tilja and her lil' sis, Anja, go to look for it, and Anja stops to listen to the cedars, which tell her where the ax is (3.35).
- Tilja realizes that her sister—not her—is the heir of Dirna. This means that Anja is the magical one, the kid who can chat with the cedars and hear what they tell her (3.42)—it also means that the family farm, Woodbourne, will be Anja's one day, and Tilja will be booted out someday. Naturally, Til is really ticked off. Plus something bad is gonna happen, and Anja can't say what—the cedars want her to keep mum (3.49).
- Tilja visits creaky old Meena and her grandma insists that the two of them go to the winter Gathering (3.62). On the way, they stop at Tilja's Aunt Grayne's home. Like Tilja, Grayne couldn't hear the cedars and had to leave Woodbourne. She gives her niece some good ol' aunt-ly advice about finding her place in the world.
- Once they get to the Gathering, Tilja and Meena attend a meeting where people gab about the Valley politics (3.91). Reyel Ortahlson's latest descendant, old Alnor, tells everyone there that some weird climate change stuff is going on and he can't sing to the river anymore (3.100-102). Meena says that he's right, but nobody listens to them (3.113).
- Tilja and Alnor's grandson, Tahl, meet and hang out (3.141). When Tahl learns that Tilja can't hear the cedars, he feels bad for her (3.152) and makes her feel a bit better. Tilja, after chatting with Tahl, realizes that the reason men can't go through the forest is because unicorns inhabit it—and unicorns can't stand men, so they cause dudes to get sick when they enter the forest (3.188).
- In fact, maidens are used to lure out unicorns, then guys hunt them down; these are the animals her mother sings to. Similarly, up north the Ortahlsons chat with an ice dragon, not the river (3.213). Turns out, as Tahl says, the magic is running out and they've got to renew it (3.193).
- Meena uses a magic spoon called Axtrig—made from the peach tree at Woodbourne—to consult the future and finds out she's going on a long journey (3.230). Tilja decides to go with her to make a future of her own (3.242). She's got to get out of her sister's shadow at some point.
- Anja tells Tilja that, for some reason, the cedars want to talk to her (3.257). Finally, right?
- They tell Tilja to go find Faheel to "'make us strong again'" (3.280-283). Guess our girl's got to find those trees some magic.