A Short Walk Through a Wide World

When Aubry is five years old, her mother reads to the children from Around the World in Eighty Days. Sylvie complains that Phileas Fogg is not traveling if he never stops to see anything. Aubry says that it does not matter because as girls, they are going to be stuck at home having babies and could never travel like that anyway. Aubry’s father says that sometimes the act of movement is what is most important. He states, “[T]hings that never move are only half of what they can be” (329).

Aubry wakes up. The roots of the jungle hang above her, and around her are thousands of books on shelves carved into tree trunks and branches. She tries to find a way back up to Marta but fails. She resents the library for its exclusivity and now sees the library as another kind of exile. She wanders until she finds a room with a chair and a table. On the table sits a bowl of fruit with a note that reads “FOR THE NEXT” in her own handwriting (331).