Summary

In Chapter 1, Lamentations ran across the frozen landscape.. She had fled her settlement after her mistress’s child Bess died and illness swept through the community. In choosing to flee, Lamentations “had left behind” her “roof,” “home,” “country,” “language,” and the only family she had ever known” (3). Losing Bess, the child “who had been born into her care” was the most difficult (3).

Although she was cold, afraid, and thin from famine, Lamentations ran through the night. The “self she had once known” was stripped “to nothing” (5).

As the moon emerged, snow started falling. Lamentations heard the mistress’s voice in the sky or her head (8). The voice asked where she was going. Lamentations was running “toward living” (9). She had seen the governor’s map, on which there were “the settlements of frenchmen” and “spanishmen” (9). She was going north because she knew some French...