To think and talk about happy times in the past

📝 After dinner, the old friends would reminisce about their schooldays for hours.

📖 In quiet moments between her chores, Roz reminisces about the island — the forest, the animals, and the gosling she raised.

A memory of something; the act of remembering

📝 Her earliest recollection was of building sandcastles on a sunny beach.

📖 A single recollection can stop Roz mid-task: the memory of Brightbill taking flight for the very first time.

Lost in thought; with your mind fixed on something else

📝 He was so preoccupied with the test that he forgot his lunch.

📖 Though her hands keep working, Roz grows increasingly preoccupied, her thoughts drifting always back to the island.

Broken into small, separate pieces

📝 After the long journey, her sleep was light and fragmented.

📖 Roz's memories return in fragmented pieces — a wingbeat here, a voice there — never quite the whole.

Sad because you are away from home and missing it

📝 On the first night of camp, several children felt homesick.

📖 For the first time, this machine feels something like homesick, aching for a place she was taken from.

Far away in space or time; not close

📝 The distant mountains were just a blue smudge on the horizon.

📖 The island feels impossibly distant now, separated from the farm by miles of land and sea.

Repeating or lingering, like a sound that bounces back

📝 Their footsteps went echoing down the empty stone corridor.

📖 The cries of the farm geese go echoing through Roz's memory, sounding so like the geese she once led.

The act of remembering or honouring something from the past

📝 A statue was built in remembrance of the brave sailors.

📖 Roz holds her memories of Brightbill in careful remembrance, refusing to let them fade with time.

A small object kept because it reminds you of someone or something

📝 She kept the seashell as a keepsake of their day at the beach.

📖 Roz has no keepsake of the island to hold — only the memories stored deep inside her, which no one can take away.

Valued and loved very deeply

📝 The worn old teddy bear was her most treasured possession.

📖 Among all her memories, the most treasured is of Brightbill, the son she loved and lost.

Feeling or showing deep sadness

📝 The dog gave a sorrowful whine as its owner walked away.

📖 A sorrowful longing settles over Roz; the farm is peaceful, but it is not where her heart lives.

A small change made in order to get used to a new situation

📝 Starting secondary school took some adjustment, but soon she felt at home.

📖 Life on the farm is one long adjustment, yet no amount of routine can fill the space the island left behind.

A part of a story that jumps back to show a vivid memory of an earlier event

📝 The film used a flashback to show what the hero was like as a child.

📖 The story slips into flashback, carrying Roz — and the reader — back to her first days on the island.