The Winter People

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death by suicide, child death, and anti-Indigenous racism.

January 15, 1908

Following the death of her daughter Gertie on January 13th, 1908, townspeople come to Sara’s house with food and support. Martin and his brother Lucius are in the barn building Gertie’s coffin. Sara’s niece Amelia comes to see her in bed, and tells Sara that she has been meeting with a group of women in Montpelier who can speak with the dead through table-rapping. She urges Sara to come with her.

That afternoon, Sara meets with the reverend to discuss funeral arrangements. When he tells her Gertie is “with our Lord” (123), Sara spits on him. In her grief, Sara thinks about Auntie and her own sense of guilt for Auntie’s death.

When she was a child, Auntie had been skeptical about Christianity and the reverend. Auntie taught Sara that “death is not an end, but a beginning” (127). One night, Sara had begged Auntie to read her future in the fire. Auntie was shocked by what she saw, but only told Sara that she had strong “gifts of sight, of magic” (129) and that Sara’s daughter would have double.