Summary

Chapter One is titled “The Roads.” Third-person narration follows Fleur as she travels down a succession of roads on her way to the city, eventually identified as Minneapolis, Minnesota. There, she intends to confront the man whom the narration describes as having stolen her land and her trees. Along the way, she scavenges for food, at one point killing and eating a dog. At another point, she goes through a spiritual ritual, connecting with the spirit of her dead mother and giving herself her mother’s name, Four Souls. Eventually she arrives in the city, finding herself disoriented and troubled. The narration comments that, among other disorienting elements, “the people stared at her as though she were invisible until she thought she was, and walked more easily then” (3). Finally, she arrives at what seems to be her destination – a mansion on a hill...