In Every Heart a Doorway, Lundy came across as bitter and unlikable as a character. In In An Absent Dream, we get to see what made Lundy that way. Young Catherine Lundy is nothing like the adult version we meet, trapped in a child's body. I don't know that I could have made a decision other than what she tried, in order to be able to live in a world that felt like home, but not have to give up the sister she'd come to love - and through her the family she'd finally come to appreciate. Moon is such a lovable character, and I'm glad the McGuire gives us closure on her life, in that she's grown into a self-sufficient adult working with Vincent at his pie shop. We get to know she's safe and on a good path, rather than on her way back to becoming a bird again.
The archivist is such a good parental figure, and she's so human throughout the initial stages of the story, that her turn at the end, having to enforce the rules of the market despite her love of Lundy was all the more heartbreaking. Lundy meeting Eleanor West at the end was a very interesting start to the story we knew going into the novella. In Every Heart a Doorway it reads as if Lundy had tried to reverse her aging to trick her world, with malice. To know it was a decision made out of love makes her character all the more tragic.