The woman in the cradle was thin as a reed, her grey hair tied up with a bootlace.
Hajin stood in the doorway with the Chain slack at his wrist, unable to cross the threshold yet. Around the cradle the pale light drained upward through a hundred pipes, each one humming its own note.
"Is it dinnertime?" she asked again, squinting at him.
"Not yet, ma'am, but I can see about it," he said, finding his voice somewhere near his feet.
"Good, I do like a boy who sees about things."
She laughed, a dry, creaking rasp like a rope dragged slowly over the rim of an empty barrel. The sound cracked down the middle, like a voice that nobody asked to work for many long years.
"Sorry, dear, the voice is rusty," she said, patting her throat.
"Don't apologise, ma'am, it's the best voice I've heard all day," Hajin said, meaning it.
"Flatterer, you'll go far, dear," she said, waving a thin hand, "though you'll want a haircut."
