Buttonwharf Hollow
Elara
“A child the height of a chair back, with a striped scarf, bright cheeks, and a satchel full of ribbons, buttons, and folded scraps tied in cheerful bundles.”
Elara is a child who stands as tall as a chair back and lives for the warm, bustling feeling of a room coming alive around her. She can be wonderfully dramatic and a little too certain of herself, which sometimes leads her to overdo things when she wants everything to feel festive and bright.
5 stories feature Elara
Where you've met them
The Button Pile Dispute
Two families of crabs, one from the muddy pilings and one from the rock garden above the quay, both claim the same pile of shiny shell buttons as their winter store. Their quarrel is growing bigger by the minute, and the harbor peace depends on finding a fair way to divide a pile neither side will give up.
Bridge Stuck on the Halfway Way
The little lift bridge at the center of Buttonwharf Hollow jams halfway up, trapping a cart of fresh bread on one side and the fishmongers’ ice on the other. With the tide changing soon, someone has to solve the jam before the bread gets soggy and the ice melts into a flood.
The Fog That Moves Docks
A fog rolls in so thick that every lantern in the hollow glows weakly under it, and the harbor markers disappear one by one from the edges of the water. Boats can still move, but only if someone keeps them from drifting into the silent places where the docks no longer seem to be where they were.
The Wharf Without Buttons
At the start of market day, every button tied to the wharf ropes has come loose, so the docking lines keep slipping free and boats cannot stay put. Unless the buttons are sorted and fastened again before the next tide surge, the whole wharf will drift into a tangle of bumping hulls.
The Sparrows Build a Nest in the Warning Bell
River sparrows weave a nest inside the tide warning bell and refuse to move their eggs. The hollow needs the bell before high water, but ringing it now would frighten the smallest new lives on the wharf.