Who is Val?

Val is Bea’s doppelganger in many ways, yet she stands in Bea’s shadow throughout the novel. She longs to be a mother but struggles to get pregnant. This makes her the natural stand-in for Agnes’s mother when Bea leaves the Wilderness. Agnes likes Val, for she frequently encourages Agnes’s leadership and budding adulthood. Finally, at the very end of the novel, she gives birth to a baby boy of her own.