Ilona Varg has a broad, work-softened face and a sturdy, practical frame, with the quiet steadiness of someone accustomed to catching wobbling chairs before they topple. Her ash-brown hair is braided close and pinned under a faded kerchief; pale sawdust often clings to its woven edge. Her eyes travel first to doorways, then to the children, then to anything unstable overhead. She moves with measured, almost soundless steps, but plants her feet wide when a child is upset. Unexpectedly, she keeps a tiny pressed violet tucked into the cuff of her work apron, replacing it whenever it crumbles.

Patient and soft-spoken, Ilona rarely raises her voice, yet she can be stubborn to the point of recklessness when a child is at risk. In ordinary moments she gives people room to make mistakes; when she hears a creak or a cry, her attention becomes immediate and controlling. She is tender with frightened pupils but awkwardly overprotective with her own daughter.

Ilona was raised in a family of itinerant carpenters and learned early that a repaired thing could outlast a grand new one. Years ago, during a winter storm, a rotten school stair gave way beneath her daughter, Salla. Ilona caught the child, but another pupil was badly injured in the fall. She spent the following months rebuilding the steps and every loose chair in Baldsville School, then stayed on as a volunteer caretaker. The accident changed her from a private, hands-off parent into someone who watches every threshold and takes responsibility before being asked. She now supervises the pupils whenever Harstad must leave town. She is on good terms with the older children, though her daughter resents being treated as a permanent emergency. Ilona is also trying to persuade the school trustees to replace the roof before the next hard snow, while quietly covering the cost of timber herself.