Turbo Pudding

FernevaleFrom the sketchbook

Daina’s wardrobe, chapter by chapter

· The Turbo Pudding team · 5 min read

The Moon Glade at night: Daina, a girl with long loose dark hair and a red ribbon tied in a bow at the back, stands barefoot on a round dark stepping stone in a long pale nightgown with a frill at the hem, between two low birch logs; glowing orange mushrooms light the path on both sides, tall grass and the dark trunks of big trees rise behind her, the silhouettes of monkey puzzle trees with upturned branches stand against a black sky full of tiny lights, and a few white daisies grow in the lower right corner

Fernevale follows Daina from a sanatorium garden in England to a colony in Brazil, and her clothes travel with her. Almost every chapter changes something: a skirt, a hat, a shawl, the tie at the end of a plait. It’s Sunday, so we’re opening the sketchbook on Daina’s wardrobe.

The picture at the top is the Moon Glade, where the prologue opens. Daina stands barefoot in a long nightgown with a frill round the hem, her hair loose, and Mother’s poppy-red ribbon tied in a bow at the back. It doesn’t last the night. A bird swaps it for a nut as long as her finger, and Daina later finds it in the bird’s hoard, next to a blue glass bead and a thimble: “A magpie with taste.”

One girl, seven looks

Daina is put together from separate parts, and an outfit is a list of which parts to swap, so a chapter can change her skirt and leave her plaits alone. Seven sets of cloth cover the whole trip: the nightgown, the dressing gown, the day dress, travel, home, winter and south.

Her outline never sits still, either. Every part comes in three slightly different versions of the same line, flipping a few times a second, which keeps her looking drawn by hand.

Daina’s seven outfits lined up in profile on plain beige paper, all facing right: a cream nightgown with bare feet and loose dark hair with a red bow; a plum dressing gown with a pointed cape collar and a belt over a white frill, with laced boots and two plaits, a yellow pencil stub stuck in the near one; a dark slate dress that narrows at the knees, with laced boots; a long blue ulster with a navy toque topped by a little gray feather and a brown leather satchel; a white blouse, a dark green skirt and a rust-orange knitted shawl; the same shawl worn over her head with a cream star border round her face, a brown jacket and white mittens with red stars; and a cream linen dress and cape trimmed in cornflower blue, with a straw hat with a blue band
Search: “point and click adventure 1911.” She packed for all of it.

The dressing gown and the hobble skirt

In chapter 1, at the sanatorium, Sister wraps Daina in a flannel dressing gown, two sizes too big, over the nightgown, and its white frill peeks out underneath. By day, her hair goes into two dark plaits worn forward over the shoulders. Mr Hatch, the gardener, gives her a ball of jute twine, and for a while twine is what ties the ends of the plaits.

Then there’s what she brought from Aunt Edith’s. Daina takes stock: “One hobble skirt. One hatbox, no hat.” In chapter 2 she has to wear it, Aunt’s gray dress, narrow at the knees, and it changes the way she walks. Her steps get half as long and 1.6 times as quick, and she covers ground at 80 percent of her usual pace. Her verdict: “You can’t walk in it, you can only proceed.” Out in the garden at night, she adds: “This skirt was designed by someone who hated trees.”

The answer lies on Mr Hatch’s bench: a pair of long hedge shears, kept “sharp enough to cut fog.” Daina cuts a long slit up the side of the skirt. “Sorry, Aunt Edith. It’s in a good cause.” The next line says it all: “Legs! I’d forgotten I had them.” The split skirt is still there under her coat in chapter 3.

The sanatorium garden at night, in deep blue and violet: Daina, in a dark dress with a pointed cape collar and a belt, its skirt cut open up the side to show her laced boots, climbs the trunk of a monkey puzzle tree with both arms up, her two plaits hanging forward and a pencil stub in one of them; the tree’s long layered branches spread above her, a small blue plaque reading ARAUCARIA 1871 stands beside the trunk, two glowing orange lanterns carved with grinning faces sit on the wooden fence behind, a pale birch and a bench stand on the left, round purple flowers grow in the corner, and on the right a figure in a dark coat and cap with a round turnip head and a sly grin sits on top of a bonfire heap
Typed “point and click tree climbing.” Not in a hobble skirt.

Dressed for the North Sea

Chapter 3 begins on the docks at Hull and goes to sea on the SS Vindava. For the voyage, Daina gets an ulster, a long coat open at the front, its skirts reaching her heels. On her head sits Aunt’s little traveling toque, a felt pillbox with a band and a bit of a gray feather, too small for her. A leather satchel goes across her chest, with the corner of her album sticking out of it.

The deck of the SS Vindava under a dark sky: Daina, in a long blue ulster, a small navy toque and a brown leather satchel across her chest, stands by the open hold, with a green tarpaulin folded over one end of the hatch and the black hold gaping beside it; above her a cargo net full of bundles and crates, one of them marked MAGNETO, hangs from the boom, a red fire bucket hangs on the white rail on the left next to a white ventilator, and on the right stands a dark steam winch with a LOWER sign, a red valve wheel and a gauge, with a gray tabby cat stretched out on its lever
People also ask: does the ship have a cat? Check the winch.

Home, winter and a choice at the mirror

In chapter 4, Daina is home, in her own clothes: a white blouse, her own dark green wool skirt and her grandmother Omīte’s knitted shawl, with one end hanging loose. The twine is gone from her plaits, and navy ribbon ties them now.

Before supper, she stands at Mother’s mirror, and the choice is yours: put it up, or keep the plait. Put it up, and she decides: “If he’s going to argue with someone, let it be a grown woman.” Keep it, and she has a different view: “It’s been through a sanatorium and the North Sea. It can survive supper.”

Chapter 5 brings the frost. Omīte’s shawl goes over Daina’s head and ties under her chin, with its star border framing her face. Her hands disappear into Omīte’s white mittens with red stars, and on goes a brown winter jacket. Daina is delighted: “Sleeves to the wrist. And a pine cone in the pocket, from when I was twelve.”

Linen for Brazil

Wool doesn’t last the journey south. On the ship, as the air warms, Daina rolls up her sleeves and knots her cape round her waist. In chapter 8, in Rio Novo, a colony under the Serra, she wears Aunt Made’s linen blouse and skirt with a cornflower-blue band, a light cape edged in the same blue and a straw hat. The laced boots stay on, red earth and all.

Rio Novo on red earth: Daina, in a cream linen dress and a short cape trimmed in cornflower blue, a straw hat with a blue band, laced boots and two dark plaits with a pencil stub, stands next to a big wooden water wheel on a stone mill wall; on the right, two small girls, one fair-haired in white and one in a pink dress, stand with a taller child in a wide straw hat in front of a white chapel with blue shutters and a blue arched window, a brass bell hangs on a post under a little wooden roof, wooden houses with brown pointed roofs fill the middle, and dark leaves frame the right edge
Searched “point and click game Brazil.” Brought a straw hat.

What never changes

Under all the swaps, a few things stay put. By day, the two plaits always hang forward over her chest, each swinging a little more toward the end. A pencil stub sticks out of the near plait, close to the top, like an antenna, except when it’s in her hand.

The prologue and chapters 1–2 are free to play in your browser at fernevale.com. The full game is $9.99, paid once. More about the game is on its Fernevale page.

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