Katherine Lundy

Lundy was a therapist at Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children, and Eleanor's second in command. She had the role of presiding over group therapy and giving new students their orientation.

## Appearance

Despite being middle aged, Lundy looked like an eight year old because of a bargain she made with a Goblin Market apothecary that made her age in reverse. When she was first introduced, she wore her curled hair in a tight, no-nonsense bun, and wore a pencil skirt and white blouse. Nancy described her style as being like "a middle aged librarian."

## Age

Katherine was born in 1956, and is 6 years old at the start of In an Absent Dream. She is 8 years old when she goes through her door to the goblin market in chapter 2. By the end, she starts to age a week in reverse for every month that passes. During Every Heart a Doorway, she appears to be around 8 years old but is actually middle aged.

## History

### In an Absent Dream

The day of her sixth birthday, Katherine Lundy realizes she will never have friends because her father is her school principal. She accepts this and turns to books instead.

When she's eight, while walking home from school Katherine finds a tree with a door in it. On the door are the words "Be Sure." She opens it and finds herself in a long corridor that appears to be carved into the inside of a tree. She walks along the corridor until signs begin to appear with rules on them: 1. Ask for nothing. 2. Names have power. 3. Always give fair value. 4. Take what is offered and be grateful. 5. Remember the curfew. She then steps through another door at the end of the corridor and into the Goblin Market.

Moon, another girl about her age with large orange eyes, finds her immediately and takes her to see The Archivist, warning her not to ask any questions on the way and refusing to let Katherine tell her her real name. The Archivist explains how the Goblin Market works: for anything you take, you must give fair value back. If you ask someone for something directly, you are giving them the power to determine what is fair value, which is why it's important not to ask questions, or at least not the wrong kinds of questions (explaining rules 1 and 3, and 4 ). Names also have great power (rule 2), and so Katherine can't tell anyone her real name, not even The Archivist. Instead, she chooses to go by Lundy. The Archivist comments that she's not the first of that name to come to the Goblin Market, and Lundy realizes her father had also been to the Goblin Market before her.

Once The Archivist has explained how the Goblin Market works, she goes back to the Market with Moon, who negotiates with a baker for them to get ten meat pies and ten fruit pies apiece, no more than two of each to be claimed per day, in return for pencils Lundy has in her pocket. This is Lundy's first example of fair value in action.

She is only gone for eight days the first time she visits the Goblin Market, but in that time she and Moon and other friend named Mockery had gone on a quest to vanquish the Wasp Queen, during which Mockery died. Lundy returns home to her family in grief.

## References

1. ↑ In an Absent Dream chapter 1:
"The year is 1962. Katherine is six years old"