North Woods

“And then, one morning, they woke in the pine duff, and he declared they were no longer hunted. He knew by the silence, the air, the clear warp of summer wind. The country had received them.”

The two young lovers have just successfully escaped their Puritan pursuers. The young man is an intuitive person who feels a visceral connection to the land. In this quote, he senses that the north woods themselves have welcomed the couple to dwell there. Such a close connection to the earth, however, diminishes with each succeeding generation of occupants.

“And I askd, Is the heathen who took me truly your friend? and she said, The one who savd you is my friend. Then anger filled me, and I said, And is he who slayd my father your friend, and is he who slayd my sister? And she said, Has he not a father and a sister who were also slayn?”

The captive girl questions the elderly woman about her friendship with the local Indigenous people. The girl’s choice of the word “heathen” indicates her Puritan bias. She has been indoctrinated to think that nonbelievers are all barbarians. She has a similarly lopsided view of the conflict that precipitated the massacre of her family. The elderly woman rightly points out both sides have done harm.

“In the place that was once the belly of the man who offered the apple to the woman, one of the apple seeds, sheltered in the shattered rib cage, breaks its coat, drops a root into the soil, and lifts a pair of pale-green cotyledons. A shoot rises, thickens, seeks the bars of light above it, and gently parts the fifth and sixth ribs that once guarded the dead man’s meager heart.”

This quote refers to the germinating apple seed that rested in the gut of one of the English scouts. The same man tried to tempt the captive girl with an apple. His heart is described as “meager” because he cut off a child’s hand and was willing to massacre an Indigenous community. The fruit that grows from this seed ultimately poisons all those who succumb to its temptation.