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“How did this place begin?” she murmured. “Yes.”
And she nodded, looking up at the brown cliffs, but was silent so long he thought perhaps she had forgotten his question. But it appeared she had been merely gathering her thoughts, because at last she looked down and continued talking.
“To answer your question, we must reach quite a long way into history. But it is, perhaps, not the history you are familiar with. There are many histories, Ezra Quinn, and they shift according to who is telling them. Which is real? Which is the one that actually happened? That is less important than what the telling creates. Because how we talk about our history necessarily influences how we live in the present.”
She looked at him, a suddenly sharp glance from the eyes folded within their wrinkles.
“O
