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Summary
Chapters 15-17
Chapter 15
The next day, workers begin building a site outside where Kira will be able to make her own dyes. As she watches through her window, she remembers Jamison telling her that Annabella died in her sleep. Kira wonders who found Annabella and how they knew to look for her. Later, Kira tells Thomas about her discovery that Jo’s bedroom door is locked. He surprises her by revealing that his own door was also locked when he was a tyke. Kira and Thomas discuss the similarities between their own and Jo’s circumstances. When Kira can’t come up with a word to describe them all, Thomas tells her about the word “artist,” which he has seen in books. Kira decides to visit Jo at night, but remembers the door is locked. Thomas reveals that when he was younger, he carved a key that works on every door in the Edifice. They agree to go to Jo’s room later that night.
Chapter 16
Kira and Thomas venture toward Jo’s room. Kira brings her special scrap of cloth, and Thomas his special bit of wood. Along the way, Thomas muffles the thumping of Kira’s walking stick with a piece of fabric. When they arrive at Jo’s room, they use Thomas’s key to unlock the door and gently wake her. Kira is surprised by how small Jo is. Kira soothes her when she cries, and Jo complains that learning the Ruin Song is making her head hurt. Thomas suggests that if she ever needs him or Kira, she should climb her furniture and thump on the ceiling. Before Kira and Thomas leave, Kira gives Jo a kiss on the forehead like she remembers her mother doing when she was a child. Back in her room, Kira comes to the realization that despite there being few rules in the Edifice, she is not free. Like Jo, Kira can no longer take joy in her art because the Council is forcing her to use it only for the Singer’s robe. She cries herself to sleep.
Chapter 17
Kira decides to visit the Fen for the first time and takes Thomas with her. In addition to her raw curiosity about the place, Kira also hasn’t seen Matt in two days and thinks he might be there. On the way, Kira hears Vandara doing an impression of a growling beast. A group of young boys tell Kira and Thomas that Matt ran away two days ago, saying he was going on a journey. When Kira and Thomas reach the Fen, they find it filthy, dark, and hostile. Kira questions why anyone would live in such terrible conditions. Thomas says it is that way because it always has been, and Kira suggests that they might have the power to change the future by completing the Singer’s robe and staff. Thomas doesn’t understand, so Kira lets the matter drop.
Further into the Fen, Kira and Thomas trade an apple to a woman in exchange for information about where Matt lives. They follow her directions to a small cott in a state of disrepair near a rotting, gnarled tree. Kira is shocked at the state of the cott. Matt’s mother refuses to tell them anything, so Kira trades her hair tie to Matt’s brother for the information. She learns that after their mother beat Matt, he went on a journey to get some blue as a gift for his friends.
Analysis
In Chapter 15, the revelation that Kira is not familiar with the word artist adds new layers to the difficult relationship between the village and art. Though it is clear from early on in Gathering Blue that Kira’s creative skill with weaving makes her an artist, the word itself doesn’t appear until Thomas hesitantly speaks it out loud, never having heard anyone pronounce it before. Kira and Thomas instinctively understand that it describes them, people with the ability to create things that are beautiful even if they aren’t useful. The village’s lack of terms for art or artist at first appears to be more evidence that the local culture devalues creativity in favor of utility. While Kira’s experiences reveal that art plays a more complicated role in the village, without precise language to describe creators of beautiful things, the village has functionally removed artists from society. This dearth of language is what allows the Council of Guardians to quite literally remove artists from society, putting them to work in the Edifice on assigned tasks over which they have little creative control.
Jo’s unselfconscious distress over the requirements of her role as the Singer-in-training pushes Kira to face uncomfortable truths about her own state of mind that she has been avoiding. Since Chapter 9, Kira has noticed her hands growing tired from working on the Singer’s robe, but it isn’t until after Kira and Thomas visit Jo’s bedroom in Chapter 16 that she admits to herself how joyless her work has become. Kira’s own door may be unlocked, but the lock on Jo’s door reflects the fact of her own captivity. Despite the creature comforts of life in the Edifice, Kira cannot be free as long as the Council of Guardians controls her creative energy. As Kira continues to wonder what exactly it means to be an artist, and in particular what value the Council has determined artists to have, she has at least found some answers, even if they are unpleasant. As artists, Kira, Thomas, and Jo experience emotional and physical pain when they are forced to use their talents in ways they do not choose.
Kira’s conversations with Thomas during their visit to the Fen in Chapter 17 underscore his importance as Kira’s foil while she deepens her understanding of the world around her. Kira and Thomas both know that their greatest tasks while living in the Edifice will be to complete their respective objects, the robe and the staff, filling in blank space with depictions of the future. However, only Kira seems able to understand the broader meaning of such work. When Kira suggests to Thomas that they might be able to change things by filling in the blanks of the future, he has no idea what she means. Kira is constantly considering the implications of her role and the work she does, searching for answers beneath the surface, but Thomas simply does what he is told without question. While both Kira and Thomas possess the innate creativity necessary for their art, Kira’s flexibility and critical thinking set her apart. On their way out of the Fen, Thomas shows the limitations of his inflexible thinking when he says Matt doesn’t have any skills that would merit the Council taking him to the Edifice. While this is true according to the narrow definition of skills that Thomas understands to be art, Kira remarks that Matt’s ability to make the people around him smile and laugh is just such a skill, thereby demonstrating her knack for openness in contrast to Thomas’s narrowmindedness.
