How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
But every mile they walked Tilja became more and more oppressed and withdrawn. A new and terrible fear had begun to obsess her. What if Moonfist had already found and destroyed the Ropemaker? Then, when at last she took out the hair tie and laid the ring beside it, only Moonfist would come. No, she told herself, I won't believe it. There's still time. He'll be here, somewhere, waiting for us.
Just after they had left the way station on the third morning after the Pirrim Hills she stopped to watch a golden cockerel scratching in the dusty by the road. It was almost the right color, but not gawky enough, she decided, and was about to move on when a man came up and spoke to her. (16.58-59)
Tilja starts freaking out that Moonfist will get to Ropey before she and her friends can, and will destroy her pal-to-be. After worrying herself into a tizzy, Tilja consoles herself by refusing to believe that things will go wrong—she's trusted in fate so far, so she puts her faith in it again. Things will work out, she tells herself. And that keeps her going.
Quote #5
"You know what," said Meena slowly. "I'm getting a feeling about all this—what's been happening to us since we left the Valley. And before, I daresay. It's felt like just one thing after another, no connection, but it wasn't. It's been all connected, like it was meant to happen. And the same with those three women at Ellion's house. They haven't just come there all on their own. They're supposed to be there. I don't know what for, no more than they do, but that's what's happening." (17.6)
For the first time, someone other than Tilja recognizes fate's hand at work here. Meena's starting to realize that she's been guided on this journey. Coincidences—the right thing happening at the right time—are few and far between. Everything has occurred just the way it was meant to, which implies that the story will wrap up satisfactorily (which is also implied in the epigraph), and the Valley will be saved.
Quote #6
What came in the end was a little mouselike creature. She saw it first as a pair of glistening eyes at the edge of darkness. She froze. It crept forward, nose twitching. Now Meena saw it, and whispered to the others to sit still. Very slowly she leaned and crumbled part of a chestnut into the animal's path. It hesitated, then came on in short, nervous darts. When it reached the crumbs it sniffed at the largest one, picked it up between its forepaws, sat back on its haunches and nibbled rapidly. The firelight sparkled off its fur. There was something odd about its movement, a kind of gawky deftness, as if it had not really been born as a whole mouse, but had been somehow assembled from several other mice. Like the unicorn, the dog, the lion…
You have eaten our food, Tilja thought. Now you must deal well by us.
She smiled and waited for what it would do next. (17.81-83)
Just a few minutes earlier, Tilja was freaked out that the Ropemaker wouldn't show up, or that Moonfist might catch him before he could help them. Finally something approaches—it's the Ropemaker in mouse-y form. After doubting that fate will assert its presence in her life, Tilja's belief is reconfirmed when Ropey shows up after all. Her journey is back on track.