SPOILER ALERT! The items discussed here are familiar books that are being re-read for travel. As such, no effort is made to shield the reader from the results of plot development.
- The book was written by Patricia A. McKillup and published by Del Rey in 1988. It deals with a girl Periwinkle (Peri for short) who hexes the Sea because it has taken her father and her mother's attention. This releases a sea dragon (the size of a blue whale), who is confined by an enormous golden chain. The magician Lyo turns the chain to periwinkles, to the horror and anger of the fishermen, who have been dreaming of GOLD, and the dragon begins turning to human shape at nights, and learning to speak. At the same time, Peri meets Kir, the son of the king, who wants the enter the sea the way her mother does, and can not even fall in love with her, for he loves the sea more.
- It turns out that the king loved a Lady of the sea, and then married a lady on land. The two ladies gave birth at the same time, the land lady died, and the children were exchanged. Now, the children want to change back, and Peri and Lyo and the king meet the Lady, who gives back the hexes transformed, and says that she is willing to exchange the children (young men) and Kir agrees to call for Peri when she is an old woman, to invite her to enter the sea.
- This view of sea people contrasts sharply with the view in The Riddle Master of Hed, where the people of the sea take human form and act as assassins, without ever explaining why they are so vicious. The initial view of the sea was hateful, but the differences were mediated.
- Magic is never explained, but the unthinking hexes of Peri were very effective because she had "power".
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