A MERLIN VOCABULARY GUIDE

A for
 ARBASSA

A tree named Arbassa is described by Rhia as "someone who protects me.  And holds me.  She is almost my mother." (p. 121)

"From the  center of the clearing rose a great oak, mightier than any tree I had ever seen.  Its burly branches reached outward and upward from the trunk, so thick that it seemed to be made of several trunks fused together.  Set in the midst of those branches, glowing like a giant torch, was an aerial cottage whose beams and walls and windows curled with the twisting limbs.  Layers of leaves overlaid the tree house, so that the light radiating from its windows shone through multiple curtains of green. (p.130)

 S. M. Smoller, Cullen Memorial Library, Higgins Middle School, Peabody, MA.  June 2004