Inside the story
Meet Valancy Stirling
Valancy Stirling, also called Doss or Valancy Jane, is a plain, timid twenty nine year old spinster living under the strict expectations of the Stirling clan. She escapes the limits of her family life through a private daydream she calls her Blue Castle.
On the page
A small, insignificant-looking woman of twenty-nine with straight, thin, lustreless black hair worn short, fine straight black brows, and distinctive queer, slanted elfin eyes set in a little three-cornered face; sallow-skinned and very thin ("scrawny") at first, later filling out with a short black fringe and skin cleared to creamy ivory.
