A History Of Wild Places

In the home of Pastoral’s leader, Levi, Bee reflects on their intimate relationship, including the fact that he was with her when she lost her sight. As is their custom, he asks her for insights into the community, which she has a unique ability to overhear. Although she feels guilty, she doesn’t tell him what she knows about Theo. They then have sex.

Afterward, the gathering begins, and Levi tells everyone the story of how the illness began. Bee goes outside, thinking about the missing memory of Travis Wren. She notes that she can “feel the hole where the memories should be, gaping, bottomless” (98), and she is terrified by her sense of the rot seeking a way into their community.

Eloise stays awake, waiting for the fox. When she sees it again, she follows it into the woods. She asks it to lead her to the darkness, but it disappears again.

In bed beside a sleeping Calla, Theo thinks about the contrast between his love for her and his urge to deceive her and the community by going beyond Pastoral’s boundaries. He looks at the photo of Maggie St. James and thinks about the possibility of Travis living in the sunroom without them realizing.

A member of the community, Colette, goes into labor, and Bee attends the birth. She assists the midwife and assistant midwife with births, not because of her knowledge of midwifery but because she can hear the babies’ heartbeats and lungs as a diagnostic tool. Colette’s baby is eight weeks early, and Bee realizes she doesn’t sound right. She and the midwife, Faye, agree that the baby will die without hospital care.

In the garden, Calla finds a small silver charm shaped like a book. Later, the community has a gathering to decide what to do about the premature baby, and opinion is split. Bee and the child’s father, Ash, argue for going for help, but Levi determines that they must protect the community at all costs. Calla thinks that Theo may be able to save the child since he seems to be immune to the illness, but it would require admitting what he did.

Despite her protests, Theo drags Calla home through the imminent rain, wanting to be out of Pastoral. She is furious with him and sends him away. He goes back through the rain to Levi’s house. Levi pours him a rare whiskey, and Theo asks permission to go for help, omitting the fact that he has already gone down the road. Levi says no again and shares his suspicion that there may not be anything left of the outside world to find.

Bee goes to see Levi, and while she states her case, he reiterates his decision that no one will go for help because “it’s just a child […] just one life” (135). Unable to keep her secret any longer, Bee tells him she’s pregnant. He reacts more coldly than she hoped, and he eventually reveals that he’s in love with Alice Weaver, whom Bee realizes is a simpler, more fitting wife for the community leader. He tells her he’ll marry Alice and that Bee should have the baby, but he can’t be its father.

Calla and Theo light sage at the boundary to stave off the rot as they talk. She says he’s been reckless since he saw the truck and asks him to promise that he won’t go past the boundary again, but he says he can’t.

Theo goes into the sunroom and finds a notebook that belonged to Travis Wren. It recounts his search for Maggie St. James, but some pages have been torn out.

Bee lies down in a meadow, a favorite place of hers, and listens to her baby. She hears Theo emerge from the house and stand in the trees, looking at the notebook. She hears the cracking of a tree.

On duty in the guard hut, Theo rereads Travis’s notebook, which includes expenses to be reimbursed for, observations of the community, a worry that he should have told someone his location, and a note that he found Maggie St. James.

Worried about Bee, whom she hasn’t seen in days, and unable to sleep in her empty bed while Theo keeps watch, Calla goes out to the garden. She begins to dig where she previously found the book charm and finds the book itself, Eloise and the Foxtail, Book One, below it.

Eloise follows the fox again. This time, it leads her down a well into a “museum of forgotten artifacts” (159), where she sees ominous eyes watching her.

Calla is shaken by the fact that the excerpt feels familiar. She sees the name Maggie St. James inside and an inscription in pencil instructing her to “Remember Maggie.”

Theo returns to find Calla reading the book. She tells him that she found it in the garden with the charm, and he tells her what he knows about the charm from Travis’s notebook. He realizes that the handwriting of the “Remember Maggie” inscription is not Travis’s handwriting, and they both agree that they need to find Maggie and Travis.

Sleeping outside and still distraught, Bee finds a tree that has split and feels its sap “bleeding to the surface” (170). She cuts her ankle in the stream. She has a drive to protect her baby, torn between impulses to leave Pastoral and risk illness or stay.

In the underground museum, Eloise looks for a book that she knows will reveal her fate.

Calla finds Bee slumped against a tree and bleeding. Bee tells Calla she touched one of the infected trees, then proceeds into the house. Calla sees Bee touch her stomach and wonders if her sister is pregnant. She also suspects Bee is planning something.

Calla goes to see Theo at the guard post and tells him about Bee touching the tree. In the trees, they see two people leaving Pastoral.

They identify the two men in the woods as Ash, the baby’s father, and another man, Turk, who has hurt his ankle in the woods. Theo tells him he won’t make it far with his injury, but Calla suggests they help them. Levi, Henry, and Parker appear on the road, Parker having seen Ash and Turk leaving the community. They bring the would-be escapees back to Henry’s barn and lock them in as a precaution, and Levi says he will perform a ritual, which involves a burial and is considered barbaric by most in the community.

Calla feels a change in herself after finding the book and wants to make the right choice despite her fear. She suggests to Theo that they get Turk and Ash out of the barn and hide them in their cellar, but he says it won’t work.

Theo goes into the sunroom again and finds one of Travis’s notebook pages behind the wallpaper. Travis writes about being able to hear people in the house and hearing trees breaking apart in the woods.

Calla goes to Bee and tells her what happened with Ash and Turk. Still despondent, Bee says she no longer has any influence over Levi and asks Calla to turn on a record. The sisters lie in bed together listening to it.

At another gathering, the community enacts the ritual: burying Ash and Turk in the earth up to their necks with their arms bound over their heads. Levi reminds the group that they need to leave the men buried for three days and three nights in the hope that the dirt will leach the illness from them.

Calla digs in the garden, searching for more books or clues but finds nothing. In the house, she finds another page under a floorboard, in which Travis notes that he doesn’t trust Pastoral. His supernatural talent seems to be fading, and he’s having trouble keeping track of the days. He needs to get out, but Maggie refuses to come with him. Theo and Calla search for the third missing notebook page but are unable to find it.

Calla goes to bring ginger water to Ash and Theo, whose hands have turned blue. Ash asks her to help his daughter. Calla realizes they’re “all to blame” for what is being done to the two men (206).

Calla tells Bee she should remain inside so they can watch for signs of rot during the gathering that marks the end of the ritual, but she instead goes to the Mabon tree nearby. They pull the men from the earth, and Levi cuts them to check the health of their blood. Bee hears in the group’s reactions that the men’s blood is “thick and black, infected” (210), and she knows they will both be executed.

Calla watches as both men are hanged and considers the community’s complicity in their deaths.

At home, Theo checks himself for signs of infection, and Calla confirms that he is clear. She wonders why he and Bee do not seem to have the rot but Ash and Turk did. Both Theo and Calla consider the possibility that nothing is what it seems.

Bee goes into the forest after the ritual, continually crossing just over the boundary and back. She searches for the pox, daring it to find her and wondering if she is becoming disconnected from reality.

Henry comes to the farmhouse and announces that there will be a celebration the following day when Levi marries Alice Weaver. As Theo and Calla walk into town, he asks her about a lullaby in the Eloise book. She lies and tells him she mustn’t have gotten to that part yet.

Eloise finds a book buried under a tree in the underground museum. Eloise sings the lullaby it contains, which turns her into something other than the story’s heroine: a monster.

Levi and Alice marry in a simple ceremony, and Theo notes that the mood is unusually subdued given how recently they executed Ash and Turk.

Bee realizes that spending time outside, away from Levi, clears her mind. She observes that a sense of blackness is dissolving, and the world is coming into focus.

Theo goes to Levi, who is drunk at the wedding, and shows him the photo of Maggie St. James. Theo also tells Levi about Travis’s notebook, and Levi tells Theo they would have known if either Maggie or Travis had entered Pastoral. Theo feels sure that Levi is lying.

Theo goes to Levi’s house and watches the gathering from the porch. Levi tosses a small item into the fire. Bee arrives, and she and Levi go upstairs. Theo enters and looks around for clues, eventually retrieving the object from the fire. It is a small box that contains the rest of Maggie’s charm necklace and the last missing page from Travis’s notebook.

Bee has come to confront Levi, but she still finds herself drawn to him. He tells her that the community pushed them apart, not him. While she insists to herself that she hates him, she feels a deep sense of need, and they have sex. While they do, she sees glimmers of the room, and the fleeting return of her sight terrifies her.

Calla thinks of the lullaby from the Foxtail book that she lied to Theo about, with which she has become obsessed. He returns from Levi’s house and shows her the necklace and missing piece of Travis’s notebook, revealing that Levi knew about Travis and Maggie and was trying to prevent them from leaving.

Eloise enjoys her new power, realizing the fox now fears her and that she now belongs to the woods.

Bee finds herself in the woods with a knife in her hands and no memory of how she got there from Levi’s bed. She is beyond the boundary and again touches the infected trees.

After Calla falls asleep, Theo notices the Eloise and the Foxtail book in the bed and takes it. He sees someone pass by in the hall and realizes it is an afterimage of Maggie, who runs to meet Travis beside the pond. The couple embraces and wades naked into the water. The figures disappear, and the memory is just out of Theo’s reach.

Calla wakes, finding Theo and the book gone. She puts Maggie’s necklace around her neck and goes downstairs. Theo is waiting there, and he says her name oddly as if he needs to make sure who she is.

Theo wonders how to tell Calla what he has realized: She is Maggie St. James, and he is Travis Wren. She goes about a normal morning making breakfast. She hums the lullaby from the book, and Theo tells her she knows it because she wrote it. She says she knows—she knew every word of the story before she read it.

The pair wonder if their memories were lost because they have the pox, but Travis thinks they would be dead by now. They try to remember and come up with small, vague snippets of their respective pasts. They realize they cannot stay in Pastoral.

Eloise spends years in the forest as she becomes hardened and forgets her old life, becoming “a forest thing” and forgetting even her old name (269).

Bee returns and admits that she realized that she is the one who has been splitting the trees. She accidentally cuts Maggie’s forearm with a knife, and Maggie prepares to tell Bee that they are not really sisters.

Travis offers to get help for Maggie’s cut, but she says no. They decide they need to leave Pastoral before they forget again.

While Bee bathes, Calla tells her she is really Maggie, and they are not actually sisters. Bee admits she is pregnant, and Calla says she already knows. Bee says she won’t leave without Colette and her baby but agrees with the plan to leave Pastoral that night.

Calla packs to leave and remembers receiving the book charms as a gift from her editor.