GRACE DOESN’T SAY ANYTHING when I catch up, but her pale eyes arc in what might be a smile. Her pace quickens. With my long legs, I shouldn’t have to try too hard to keep up but, true to form, I manage to trip on every exposed root and fallen branch while she strolls along as if the path is as smooth and clear as a concrete corridor.
It feels like the forest starts even before we reach the wall, cultivated patches shading to free-growing ground cover and small brush, then young trees, then not-so-young ones. The buildings step up likewise from the hill- and pit-houses of the rolling center to the taller solid wooden and pressed earth structures as we near the edges, and, finally, the soaring green-and-silver towers and inhabited trees along the inner ring of the wall.
Grace tells me the
