Taylor Medina & Jeremy Pepin

“They camped that night in the woods on a ridge overlooking the broad piedmont plain where it stretched away to the south.” (47)

Definition: A district lying along or near the foot of a mountain range (noun)

The tourists ventured on the piedmont, looking up at the snowy mountain.

Definition: A flat termination to a stern, above the water line (noun)

“His uncle turned the boat and shipped the oars and they drifted over the sandy shallows until the transom grated in the sand.” (13)

The family built the transom on the ship so it would be sturdy and last a long time.

Definition: An image sculpted as a monument (noun)

In the produce section in the bottom of the bins they found a few ancient runner beans and what looked to once have been apricots, long dried and wrinkled effigies to

themselves. (22)

The effigies of presidents, such as President Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial, can be seen in Washington, DC.

Definition: Broken stone used to make a road (noun)

“The snow was largely melted on the macadam and in the south facing fields and woods.” (105)

The macadam felt bumpy under the tires of the car as they drove down the road.

Definition: Begging (adjective)

“Then they set out on the road again, slumped and cowled and shivering in their rags like mendicant friars sent forth to find their keep.” (126)

The homeless man on the corner sat, mendicant, hoping for money.

Definition: a reservoir, tank, or container for storing or holding water or other liquid (noun)

“Down there in the darkness was a cistern filled with water so sweet that he could smell it.” (122)

They carried their cistern with them at all time in the desert, since they lacked another source of water.

Definition: the underside of an architectural feature, as a beam, arch, or ceiling (noun)

“The peeling paint hanging in long dry sleavings down the columns and from the buckled soffits.” (106)

The soffits were beautifully structured in the antique building.

Definition: to burn or reduce to charcoal (verb)

“They scrabbled through the charred ruins of houses they would not have entered before.”(92)

+ =

The house was charred to a crisp.

Definition: a volcanic glass similar in composition to granite, usually dark but transparent in thin pieces (noun)

“She would do it with a flake of obsidian.”(58)

The beautiful piece of obsidian was dark, black and shiny.

Definition: the opening of any trap door or an opening that serves as a doorway or window in the floor of roof of a building (noun)

“The faintly lit hatchway lay in the dark of the yard like a grave yawning at judgment day in some old apocalyptic painting.” (153)

They opened the hatchway to escape from the robbers.