In a sense, it was solid. Plants carpeted the earth, more plants than she’d ever seen together in one place. There was so much green it made her dizzy. There were trees, as well, she discovered as they descended from the sky, unlike anything she’d ever seen, not scraggly stunted things barely taller than she was, but trees many times taller than her whose branches, fanning out like open arms, were so thickly covered in bright green leaves that they captured the rays of the sun and cast deep shadows beneath them. It made her forget, for many moments, the turmoil that had besieged her since the village. Ralph had been among the dead, but that hadn’t seemed to especially please Gabriel and it hadn’t relieved her nearly as much as she’d thought it would. Mostly, she’d just felt hollow, because his death didn’t undo the things he’d done and she’d discovered so many more just like him in her wanderings that she felt none of the freedom from fear that she’d thought she would feel in knowing he could never touch her again.
