Once Willow met her roommate for the night, she began to wish she had slept somewhere out in the forest. The girl was like a troll, with the most unfortunate appearance. Her nose was pushed up and rather flat, like a pig, and her hair was thin and greasy. Her mouth had a tendency to hang open, giving her pimply, pock-marked face a rather stupid expression. The girl slept on a straw-tick mattress under the eaves in an attic room over the kitchen. During the day it must have been as hot as farrier’s furnace in the small room. By night the cold air seeped in, and the only warm place in the room was next to the chimney, a space that the girl’s bed occupied.
One look at the greasy, stained linens, and some specks of dirt that appeared to be moving, and Willow knew she wouldn’t be sharin
