Meaning of 青じろい in 風の又三郎 In one of 's stories, the following sentence appears: My question is as to what the meaning of () is here. The technical definition of this word seems to be "bluish white" or "pale", however in context I don't understand why the trees "paled strangely". Are the trees "paling" because their leaves are turning over due to the wind? Or for some other reason? Or would "darken" be a closer English word to express this usage?

It seems to me like a rhetorical figure more than anything. I can't say anything for a certainty, but calls to my mind such ideas as "ghastly", "spooky", "eerie", so it could be alluding to the (suspected) true identity of the new transfer kid, which is, as Wikipedia puts it,

(I haven't read the novel, by the way. So the entirety of my knowledge of the story consists almost wholly of the quote and what's written on the Wikipedia article. Yay!)