Madame made the little ball of light vanish when she was through, leaving them sitting side by side in the darkness. Now, in spite of the fact that they were flying through the air, rather high above the ground, the only real indication of this was that there was nothing but darkness below them. Madame Bella was as calm and composed as if she did this every day, and the motion of the cart—well, there just wasn’t any perceptible motion, only a bit of breeze from their passing. It was surreal, to tell the truth, giving Elena a sense of peculiar dizziness and disorientation. She blinked, and for the first time, wondered if she really was flying through the night sky above the countryside. The whole situation was very dreamlike, after all. Dreamlike; was it a dream? The more she thought about it, the more certain it seemed. Why, at any moment now she would awaken and discover herself on her pallet in the deserted, barren house, with the depressing prospect of no position and very few options in front of her.
