Chapters 1-5 Summary

Chapter 1 - A Stranger in the Night

Meggie Folchart lives with her father Maurice in a small farmhouse filled with books. Her father is an expert bookbinder. Her mother disappeared when she was very little. One night, Meggie is reading in her bedroom by the window, when she thinks she spots someone standing out in front of the house in the storm. She runs and tells her father, who tells her that he knows the visitor and that Meggie should return to bed. Meggie decides to spy on her father and the stranger. She overhears her father address the stranger as Dustfinger. Meggie, peering down from the stairwell, thinks she sees the head of a small creature poke its head out of Dustfinger's backpack.

Dustfinger tells Mo, who he addresses as Silvertongue, that it is useless to run, that someone named...