How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
There's no magic in the Valley. It's all been taken away, and used to keep us safe. No magic in people's minds, either—you heard 'em yesterday—they'd no idea what Alnor and me were talking about, in spite of everything that had happened to bring so many of 'em to the Gathering. (3.209)
The people of the Valley don't realize that what they dismiss as a silly myth is actually the reality that saved them once—and might save them again.
Quote #2
The Ortahlsons, up in the mountains, still sing to the snows year after year, and take much the same line, keeping their version of the story to themselves. For everyone else, yes, of course there is a strange sickness in the forest, affecting only men, but there is presumably a natural explanation for that. And yes, there is a glacier in the mountains, where there used to be a road, but all that shows is that winters were once milder than they now are. Is that anything to be surprised about? (2.104)
Fact turns to fiction over time... and people invent more logical explanations to replace the fantastical (and true) ones that created the landscape around them.
Quote #3
Go, then, adventurer on your vivid journey;
Though once again, of course, I cannot join you--
That is as certain as your happy ending.
The one-armed captain in the pirate harbor
Would know me in an instant for a Jonah [...]
No, I will stay at home and keep things going.
Conduct the altercation with the builders,
Hoe the allotment, fix the carburetor. (0.1-5, 13-15)
This poem at the beginning of the novel is dedicated to the author's wife, fantasy author Robin McKinley—but it also applies to Tilja's journey in the book. We, the readers, sit at home in our normal world while we watch the heroine venture out into a magical realm that we can only dream of. We may doubt magic, but the "reality" that comes across in Dickinson's fantasy story is, for the time that we are reading the book, reality—as it is for Tilja, the adventurer in the story.