In summer 1698, seven-year-old Adeline leaves Villon-sur-Sarthe for the first time, riding to market on her father’s cart. She watches her mother fade from view at the yew tree and feels a sudden thrill at the word away, surprised that no invisible tether seems to pull her back as the village shrinks behind them.

As Maxime the mare carries them toward Le Mans, Adeline’s father becomes someone new to her on the road: talkative, warm, and generous with stories of palaces, kings, and glittering cities. Adeline listens hungrily and wishes she could write the tales down, a desire that foreshadows how her father will later teach her letters in the workshop despite her mother’s objections.

For much of the journey, Adeline fears the outside world will be only a dull reflection of home, until the walls of Le Mans rise ahead—vast and stone—changing her sense of scale and possibility. Inside the gates, the crowded streets spill into a massive square, and Adeline is overwhelmed by strangers, unfamiliar voices, and the rich smells of food, as if her world has suddenly expanded into countless new rooms.

While her father sells his carved wares and casually carves as he talks, Adeline clings to the wooden ring he made for her birth, wearing it on a cord like an anchor amid the bustle. When a passing horse jostles the cart and she nearly falls, her father pulls her back, keeping her close and safe.

At day’s end, after his goods are sold, Adeline’s father gives her a coin to choose a treat, and she selects a blank journal for the promise of what it might hold. He adds charcoal and teaches her to draw, sketching a bird and showing her how to shape shadow, and Adeline eagerly copies the lines.

They plan to sleep at an inn, and Adeline anticipates waking in a foreign bed, briefly lost to place—afraid, then exhilarated by a feeling she cannot yet name. By the time they return to Villon, the trip has already changed her: she has become someone with her “windows thrown wide,” newly hungry for fresh air and elsewhere.