It was a moonless night, the clouds colluding to block out the stars, and the crowd knitted itself tightly in a weave of black whisperings.
-- Narrator (Part One, Freedomtime )

Importance: On the opening page, Atakora brings together a wealth of significant images in one tightly-packed sentence. The image of knitting and weaving evokes traditional feminine arts, while the reduction of people to “whisperings” suggests the way that individual identity can be lost in a group. The rhyming of clouds and crowd reinforces the pathetic fallacy at work, whereby the spooky atmosphere of the night reflects the tense mood of the townsfolk. By personifying the clouds as “colluding to block out the stars,” Atakora creates a claustrophobic sense of pervasive conspiracy, with nature itself behaving secretively. In this one sentence, she prepares us for a darkly mysterious novel, in need of illumination and unweaving.

And Miss Rue, the only one left to sustain her mama’s...
-- Narrator (Part One, Surrender )