Character 4 : Annabella

   Annabella is Kira's tutor. She teaches her the same things she taught Kira's mother, Katrina. Annabella is skilled in the art of dyeing, and making dyes.She teaches these skills to Kira, who shows more talent than even her own mother.
   The book describes Annabella as a, "bent and white-haired old woman". She talks with the same accent and lilt as Matt, her being from the Fen also. She is as skilled at making dyes as Kira is at threading. She is a four syllable woman, which makes her very old. I would say from 50 years and older.
   The title of the book only began to make sense to me after I met Annabella in Chapter 8. Kira has been taught by her mother since a young age. Her mother taught her how to thread, and had just begun to teach her how to dye before her untimely death. The blue threads on the Singer's robe were faded to almost white. When Kira would ask why they didn't replace the faded blue threads, she was told that no one knew how anymore.

What I imagine the faded blue threads on the Singer's robe look like. Image courtesy of google.com

   In one last burst of desperation, Kira asks Annabella if she knows how to "make blue". Annabella's response thickens the plot and makes it hard to put the book down. "'I ne'er could make it,'she was saying. 'But some have blue yonder.'"
   Through the entire book, the thought that there are no other villages is reinforced. Annabella's response strikes doubt in Kira's heart. Doubt that there are no other villages, doubt that there are monsters in the woods, doubt that her parents' deaths were simply accidents.
   Annabella plays an important role in Kira's life, and in the plot of the story. She is the one who shines light on all the holes in her society's explanation of things, from monsters in the woods, to deaths, and to the existence of other villages. She changes Kira's life.