Mrs. Chur (her full name is Valakashnya Chur, but almost nobody ever calls her that) is a little old lady who lives alone on an island on the outskirts of the Inches, leaving on her small rowboat only to buy supplies in Smallport once a week or so. That doesn't mean she is entirely isolated, however; she loves to entertain visitors, and while her island provides no berths for large cargo or cruise ships, local fishermen and others with smaller ships and boats often stop by for a home-cooked meal and conversation. Mrs. Chur is a cheerful gossip, and her guests get not only good meals, with cookies and cake for dessert, but also get regaled with accounts of what Mrs. Chur heard from prior visitors.

A mystery to Mrs. Chur's guests—or at least those to whom the question even occurs—is how she manages to support herself. She does have a small garden on her island, but while that may explain how she obtains certain vegetables, it certainly doesn't explain how she pays for the meat and other food she buys in town, let alone her clothing, maintenance of her house and boat, and other expenses. Mrs. Chur, if asked directly—which she rarely is—, amiably evades the question, but of course it does have an answer, if one she prefers not to disclose. Mrs. Chur has befriended a family of gackles (bloodsucking sea creatures) that live in the oceans around her island, and they bring her gifts—coins and trinkets, mostly, with the occasional useful tool or even piece of jewelry—that she keeps if she particularly likes the looks of them, or sells if she doesn't. Mrs. Chur assumes the gackles salvage these items from the seafloor, and some of them they do, but, while Mrs. Chur doesn't realize it, they've also been stealing some of the treasures they pass on to her from boats or from people on the shore. The gackles are quite devoted to Mrs. Chur, and—though again she doesn't realize it—are perfectly willing to punish those that they witness or hear of treating her poorly.

Mrs. Chur is a small, somewhat heavyset woman with a rolling gait and an excitable manner. She has an expressive face with a long, oval nose, a small, round chin, and deep wrinkles around her mouth, the whole looking somewhat as if someone had grabbed her by the nose and pulled to stretch her face forward. Her descent from tenrec navanars is evident mostly in the anomalous yellow spikes in other otherwise gray hair and the small tail she modestly covers with her clothing. She is a garrulous talker prone to go off on wild tangents and return much later to her previous topic, her voice cracking with age but lively. She enjoys wearing roomy dresses with gingham or floral patterns.