A remarkable or extraordinary event or thing, especially one that is hard to explain

📝 The Northern Lights are a natural phenomenon that draws visitors from all over the world.

📖 A flying, typing squirrel is a phenomenon — something so strange and remarkable that no one can quite explain it.

A deep, thoughtful sadness

📝 A quiet melancholy filled the house on the grey winter afternoon.

📖 A quiet melancholy hangs over the story's lonely characters — Flora, her divorced parents, and the strange blind boy next door.

Calmness and control over one's feelings, especially in a difficult moment

📝 She kept her composure during the interview, even when the questions grew hard.

📖 William Spiver speaks with surprising composure for a boy who cannot see, hiding his fear behind long, careful words.

Sad and lonely; left alone and unhappy

📝 The forlorn puppy waited by the gate long after its owner had gone.

📖 The forlorn boy next door, sent away from home by his mother, is as lonely in his own way as Flora is in hers.

Full of quiet longing or gentle sadness for something

📝 She gave a wistful smile as she looked at the photo of her old school.

📖 There is something wistful in the way William Spiver speaks of his mother, longing for a home he has been sent away from.

To become aware of something through the senses or the mind; to understand

📝 Bats can perceive objects in the dark using sound rather than sight.

📖 Though William Spiver cannot see, he claims to perceive the world in other ways, noticing what sighted people miss.

A strong fear of something that might happen

📝 She felt a growing dread as the day of the test drew near.

📖 Flora feels a quiet dread that her mother will try to get rid of Ulysses the moment she discovers what he can do.

A deeply distressing experience that leaves lasting emotional pain

📝 It took the survivor years to recover from the trauma of the flood.

📖 William Spiver insists that his blindness was caused by trauma — a shock so painful that his eyes simply stopped working.

Real and sincere; not faked or pretended

📝 Her thanks were genuine, and everyone could tell she truly meant them.

📖 Beneath William Spiver's fancy words lies a genuine loneliness, and beneath Flora's cynicism, a genuine longing to be loved.

Completely confused; unable to understand

📝 The detective was baffled by the locked room with no way in or out.

📖 Flora is baffled by William Spiver — by his enormous vocabulary, his dark glasses, and his calm certainty that he cannot see.

To make out or recognise something, especially with difficulty

📝 Through the thick fog she could just discern the shape of the lighthouse.

📖 Unable to use his eyes, William Spiver must discern the world by sound and touch, piecing it together without sight.

Glowing with intense light and heat; brilliantly bright

📝 The incandescent bulb glowed a warm, fierce orange before it burned out.

📖 Flora's favourite comic hero, the Amazing Incandesto, is a being of incandescent light — and Flora half-hopes Ulysses might be a hero like him.

A plan or aim to do something

📝 He announced his intention to run the whole marathon, however long it took.

📖 Flora's mother makes her intention clear: she does not want a squirrel in the house, no matter how remarkable he is.

To speak in a low, unclear voice, often in complaint

📝 He muttered something under his breath and shuffled off to his room.

📖 Flora's father mutters and worries in the background, caught between his daughter's wishes and his ex-wife's demands.

Quick to notice things; paying close attention

📝 An observant reader will spot the small clue hidden in the first chapter.

📖 Flora is sharply observant, watching every face for the first sign of the danger she is sure is coming for Ulysses.