We walked or instead ran down a lavishly decorated corridor. Lush red carpets, golden embroidery on all the awesome red curtains, antiques on pedestals in regular alcoves along the wall, and paintings of people mounted on the walls. Every one of them had silver hair like Uncle Ecthelben's in that strange painting in my room. The little girl scampered ahead, leading the way. She had made her gown freer to give her movement room to set a grinding pace for us. She seemed to be in a hurry.
Once in a while, she would turn to ensure that I was still following. Like I could go anywhere even if I wanted to. The encounter with that... thing... had scared me straight. No way was I going to even think of imagining myself somewhere else. There were no turns or junctions in the corridor. It
