Content Warning: The following Chapter Summaries & Analyses contain references to sexual abuse and rape, misogynistic violence, extreme classism, suicidal ideation, attempted suicide, racism, and the death of children, which feature in the source text. This section of the guide also discusses developmental disabilities, which are described in the novel using outdated and offensive language, and the violent nature of colonialism and imperialism.

A teenage girl slips through the wooden palisade that separates the European settlement from the wildness of the North American landscape. Starving and desperate, she runs through the blighted crop fields and into the forest. A servant for a wealthy family, the girl witnessed the death of the family’s grown son the night before. In a desperate bid for freedom, she stole his boots and her mistress’s cloak in order to make her escape. A critical voice in her head denounces her choices, but she forces her tired, starving body onward nonetheless, drawing upon her faith in God and worrying about her ability to survive in the wild.

As her memories press in and her own thoughts torment her, she must decide between heading north to the French settlements or going south to the Spanish settlements.