95 pages • 3 hours read
Kelly BarnhillThe Girl Who Drank the Moon
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 31-35Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 31 Summary: “In Which a Madwoman Finds a Tree House”
The flock of paper birds flies the madwoman to Xan’s homestead. The madwoman already knows what she will see: Xan’s workshop and tree home, Glerk’s swamp, an observatory, the garden, and a home for the goats and chickens. The madwoman knows that her vision is true and that her child, Luna, is there. Her own mother had visions of the baby boy she sacrificed to the Witch and saw events in his life as he grew. Similarly, the madwoman can envision what her own child looks like. Suddenly she doesn’t remember what she named her child, or even her own name, but she knows they exist.
The madwoman understands that the Sisters tried to drive her deeper into madness and sorrow. They were all “venom and slither and hiss” (249), whispering lies to make her doubt herself. They told her she never had a baby, that no one cared about or missed her. The madwoman knows that they were “only doing as they were told” (250).
At Xan’ house, the madwoman calls out to see if anyone is home, but everything is silent. She sees that the animals haven’t been cared for recently: The goats need milking, and the chickens are hungry. Going through the door, she finds a cozy and comfortable home. She looks at the drawings hanging on the walls. They are pictures Luna has made of Fyrian, Xan, Glerk, and a woman with long black hair reaching out of a tower, and the words “She is here” (252). Luna has signed all her pictures, and the madwoman realizes Luna is her daughter’s name. The madwoman knows that everyone is in the woods—with the Sorrow Eater.
Chapter 32 Summary: “In Which Luna Finds a Paper Bird. Several of Them, Actually.”
Luna awakens from her fall and finds herself on a bed of giant mushrooms. The crow is thankful she is alive and suggests they go home. Luna disagrees and uses the mushrooms to orient herself with her map, and they continue to look for Xan. Luna notices that all her cuts and bruises are oddly healed but doesn’t see that her footsteps are filling with flowers.
The crow worries because this part of the forest is very dangerous. Flying high, he spots a ruined village and warns Luna that there is “something coming” (260). Luna explores the village and finds the remains of a tower that has carvings on it. She sees images of dragons and scholars and people with birthmarks like hers. As she looks at the carvings, Luna hears a sound “like rustling paper” (261). In terror, the crow flies into her arms. The huge, noisy flock of paper birds descends and stares at Luna, who suddenly understands what magic is.
In swallow form, Xan is so weak that she forgets who she is and what she is supposed to be doing until she hears Glerk and Fyrian’s voices coming through the forest. Glerk senses Xan’s magic but doesn’t see her. He tells Fyrian about how, after the volcano erupted, the villagers fled their homes and went into the Protectorate. Xan hears them mention that Luna is in the forest. This upsetting news, and her need to find the baby, sends Xan off again on her mission.
Chapter 33 Summary: “In Which the Witch Encounters an Old Acquaintance”
Xan remembers that her father was a carpenter and her mother sold honey. Xan can’t picture what her parents looked like, but she recalls how loved she felt with them. They disappeared, and Xan doesn’t know how or why. The woman with “a heart like a tiger” (263) claimed she found Xan by herself in the woods. Now, still a swallow, Xan rests in a tree and takes sustenance from moonlight. She hears a scared voice. The moonlight makes Xan’s caring nature come forward, as she flies down to help the person. It is Antain. Xan startles him, and he throws a rock at her, breaking her wing.
Antain immediately feels remorseful and ashamed—he has never knowingly hurt another living creature. He even worries he may not be able to kill the Witch. Antain tells the swallow that his wife Ethyne can heal its wing. He tucks the bird into his coat, and they continue through the woods.
Sister Ignatia is also in the woods, and she is hungry. Although she gorged herself on the Protectorate’s sorrow before she left, now she feels weak, and her magic is waning. Sister Ignatia thinks proudly of how she created the Protectorate, using the Seven League Boots to collect all the villagers from the forest when the volcano erupted. She put all the people and their “endless sorrows” (268) in one place for her own enjoyment. Sister Ignatia pulls baby starlings from their nest, crushing them one by one in front of their mother, and feeds on the mother bird’s sorrow. She plans to recover her Seven League Boots.
Chapter 34 Summary: “In Which Luna Meets a Woman in the Woods”
Luna believes the paper birds are trying to communicate with her. To find Xan, Luna tries drawing with her eyes closed. She produces a picture of a bird sitting in a man’s hand, which she thinks is useless. The crow alerts Luna to a “tiger” in the forest, but Luna sees a woman approaching. It is Sister Ignatia, who observes that the paper birds are not Luna’s magic. She attempts to make Luna feel sorrowful but just makes Luna angry. Sister Ignatia suddenly realizes that her Seven League Boots were in the castle but are now gone. Furious, Sister Ignatia turns her attention to Luna, who she senses took the boots. The flock of paper birds comes to Luna’s defense, attacking and cutting the Sister, allowing Luna and the crow to run away.
In the Protectorate, Grand Elder Gherland, accompanied by two Sisters of the Star, visits Ethyne for some pre-Day of Sacrifice intimidation, which doesn’t go according to plan. Gherland doesn’t like Ethyne’s cozy, pretty home, which is oddly filled with sunlight. He doesn’t like that Ethyne isn’t sorrowful. Gherland finds her insolent and proud, and he’s amazed that she has the gall to question him about Sister Ignatia’s whereabouts. Gherland is even more grumpy that he obeys Ethyne’s command to be quiet. Ethyne knows both Sisters and asks, “Does the tiger prowl?” (276). The women like Ethyne and respond that they hear nothing at night, and they are all sleeping well. Ethyne accuses Gherland of sending Antain into the woods to die. Gherland feel ashamed. Ethyne says it is time she visits her former Sisters, while “the cat’s away” (278), and the three women leave Gherland behind, muttering about rules.
Chapter 35 Summary: “In Which Glerk Smells Something Unpleasant”
While Glerk and Fyrian continue to search for Xan, Fyrian announces that he is “the itchiest in the world” (285). Fyrian asks Glerk if dragons shed their skins. Glerk, who doesn’t know much about dragons, responds with words from the Poet indicating that each creature must find its own “Ground.” He suggests that when Fyrian finds his own Ground, he may understand himself better. Glerk shares that his Ground is the Bog and thinks that Fyrian’s Ground is fire since dragons came from stars. Glerk also tells Fyrian that people can be different things to different people. To Fyrian, Glerk is “his” Glerk, who loves him.
Both notice that there are new places where the ground is ready to collapse into the volcano, and new areas that are burning. Glerk also smells the presence of the evil Sister Ignatia.
The Head Sister runs quickly through the woods but knows she could go faster with her boots. Stopping to look through her scrying device, she sees hands removing her boots from a trunk. Sister Ignatia is aware that the only way to get the boots off a person who is already wearing them—if they don’t remove them voluntarily—is to kill that person. The Sister recognizes the area around the wreck of the old castle and heads “home.” She has fond memories of her life in the castle, even though she betrayed all the magicians there by stealing the boots and leaving them behind to die. The only thing that matters to Sister Ignatia, however, is what belongs to her.
Chapters 31-35 Analysis
Although Xan says, “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe her magic will never come. Maybe I won’t die. Maybe a lot of things” (263), nothing can stall Luna or Fyrian’s maturation or Glerk’s reawakening. Luna’s magic is emerging; she is now able to understand what magic is and does. Fyrian’s itchiness and his question about whether dragons shed foreshadow his coming physical changes. Glerk advises Fyrian that “you will know who you are” (286) when Fyrian finds his “Ground.” This applies to Luna as well. She is learning about herself and the fact that she also has magic. Glerk is self-aware. He knows that his “Ground” is the Bog and also recognizes his many roles in life: Poet, friend, family, and “maker.” His love includes the whole world, and in his renewed longing for the Bog, we sense this journey will also be transformative for Glerk. Xan loses herself briefly in swallow form but regains self-knowledge when she hears voices of those she loves—reviving her motherly instinct to protect Luna and rescue the baby.
Despite the Council and Sister Ignatia’s attempts to control the stories that inform the Protectorate, truth begins to emerge. The madwoman knows that her visions of Luna are as true as those of her mother, who envisioned the boy she sacrificed living a happy life. This suggests that the madwoman’s mother is one of the novel’s first-person parental narrators. The madwoman realizes that grief caused her madness, which now enables her “to see the truth, too” (250).
The truth of the stories about the Witch in the woods is also called into question: there are now three witches in the woods, giving some veracity to the parent’s story that the witch might look like a girl, or a lady, or an old woman. Luna is on her way to becoming a witch, traveling through the woods to find Xan. Ironically, Antain unknowingly holds the fearsome Witch he wants to kill in his pocket. Antain is in no danger from old Xan, who simply hoped to comfort him. But Antain is in danger from another witch in the woods. As she left Gherland to hunt and kill Antain, Sister Ignatia quipped, “I hear there’s a witch in the woods. Did you know?” (231). She becomes the storied evil witch. The madwoman declares that bad men and women took her baby, “and possibly a witch” (250) was involved. Yet she admits she questions whether the Witch had a part in it. Her uncertainty stems from both hearing her mother’s “true” stories as a child, and her own questioning of those stories’ accuracy.
Ethyne irritates Gherland by interrogating him, someone of much higher social status: himself. He notes, “people did not question much in the Protectorate” (275). Thanks to her questioning, Ethyne learns that Gherland sent Antain to his death and that Sister Ignatia preys on the Sisters of the Star at night—now that she is gone, they can finally get restful sleep. Questions dispel lies, and deceptive stories and expose truth.
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