The Noise of the World by Adriana Spadoni — Read

Day after day Anne sat at rest in the vast silence. Far back in space and time she had waved a last good-bye up the black funnel of the staircase to Hilda, holding Rogie, for, in the end, Belle had prevailed and Anne had come alone. Trains and stages and the creaking wagon of old Timothy Potter had brought her from the world below and laid her in the heart of this little grassy meadow. Ringed by mountain peaks it lay, small and still, at the top of the world.

In the morning the sun rose with sudden gladness, not with the slow reluctance of the lowlands, but as if forced by its own energy and desire from the blackness of night. All day it poured its warmth into the meadow and when it went, yielding to night in a blaze of color; it called good-by in brilliant purple and crimson and went as gladly as it had come. In the afternoons a busy little wind came down from the snowy peaks, went its round of inspection over the lush green grass of the meadow, chatted with the little brook, whispered to the trees, saw all was well and slipped back again into the granite gorges. The stars came out, not with furious twinkling and effort to reach through to men so far below, but, with still gold, they moved forward into night.