Sleepy Drughrs and Lighthearted Sweetness, Chapter 13 to 16

Reading through this book is becoming more and more enwrapping and beautiful. I slip into its pages and I can feel myself inside of its mystical and gothic world, with the characters moving about and talking around me as I follow them in their actions, listen to their dialogue and marvel at their otherworldly powers. The book has taken me to Japan, a segment where Jacob Marber’s early days of working for Cairndale and story of how he became the darkness is partially, almost fully told. A side of him is shown that was never known before and it is intriguing and poignant, for that side seems to now be gone, but I don’t believe it is lost. He meets a little girl there, Komako, who is the first person he has met that shares his talent of dustwork. I also got to observe some of the mechanics and skills of this gift through their talks about what they can do with the dust and manipulate it with their hands. There are side effects from working dust as well, like the stinging coldness it brings to their skin and veins when it is pulsing through them. I love that more of the world of talents, the unseen and what the gifts are called are being slowly more revealed and explained to me, so that as I read I know and understand this language and terminology as a whole. The worldbuilding is vast and expansive, like a picturesque landscape that I love to explore and venture every passage, secret and open. The dark talents is still a new concept that I have begun to decode its meanings and figures, through the character’s teachings of them. I know that these talents belong to a grey world Coulton and Jacob often refer to as the “grey room”, where the voices and clouds of their souls all wander what sounds like agony. They are trapped there, never to thread the strings of their world with the other and talents everywhere around the world want to keep it that way. I think the greyness where they are confined is more of a collective emotion and haunted pain rather than a grey colour that paints the room. This “suffering” sticks to the walls and emanates from the talent’s souls. I feel like only a hurting sickness is felt when entering that room. The drughr has been given agency and communicates with Jacob in his dreams. But they aren’t really dreams, even Jacob describes them like that. Its like he’s moving in a dream that is coating and layering his world even though he is awake and the feeling becomes stronger when he communicates more and believes in what she is saying more. Jacob feels “sleepy, almost drugged” when he is with the “figment”. A drughr “drugs” the talent with their words and dark gifts, until they have become the drug festering in the talent themselves. I am so happy that Coulton has made a new friend in Ribs, a talent with the gift of invisibility. She is a sneaky and funny child that makes me smile and laugh at her interactions with Coulton. They are sweet together and she really softens his heart. She is on the boat with Komako, Jacob and Coulton that is sailing to Cairndale. In the next segment of the story, I will be travelling the rooms and island patches of Cairndale. Now that I know more of the drughr, another dustworker and invisible girl, I hope to learn of their memories at the school and if their characters will reappear later on with our present day characters. I also hope to go inside of the grey room, which is officially called the “orsine” and meet the dark talents. Jacob is said to have opened it, which is what the drughr needed him for. I would also like to insert a little scene here between Coutlon and Ribs that I just love and I think perfectly describes their friendship. “Coulton was in his little cabin with the door closed and the hammock stowed, writing at the narrow desk nailed to the floor, when he paused and put down his pen and half turned on the stool. “Right,” he said softly. He stared up at the ceiling. At last, out of the emptiness, came Ribs’s voice.” How’d you know I was here?”