Through Black Spruce

Annie tells Will how she and Gordon left New York for good. Soleil kicks her out of the apartment and freezes her bank account. Annie plans on staying in a hotel until Butterfoot calls her to say that two of Danny’s closest friends are dead and she needs to get out of there. He agrees to help her and Gordon cross the border. She waits for Butterfoot to arrive, but Danny comes over instead.

Danny beats and strangles Annie, forcing her to tell him anything she knows about Suzanne’s whereabouts. Annie realizes that Suzanne knows something, which is why Danny is being threatened with death. While he chokes her, Annie reveals that her sister sent a postcard from South Carolina and that they are from Moosonee. Before Danny can kill her, Gordon shows up and chokes him unconscious. Gordon intends to drop Danny off the balcony, but Annie stops him. She says, “My protector is no murderer. And neither am I” (298).

The two head out to the trail station, embarking on their journey home and leaving New York behind. Butterfoot’s cousin plans to meet them near the border to help them get across.

Will flies away, but with little gas and bad weather, he has a bad flight. He makes it home, hoping that nobody heard his plane come in. The first thing he does is call his sister. Lisette tells him that Suzanne is alive, that she sent a postcard, and that Annie is still working in NYC. She shares that Marius was shot while he was away. Will wonders, “Did Lisette really believe this, or was she pretending?” (303). The police considered Will a suspect, but many people vouched that he had already gone, and they blamed the biker gang for the shooting. The next morning, Will goes to the police station to make sure his name is cleared. The sergeant tells Will the same that his sister did, that he had alibis and that there was no evidence a court could use against him. As Will goes to leave the sergeant, “he leaned even closer to me, and whispered, ‘Next time, shoot straighter’” (306).

Will doesn’t admit that he shot Marius to his sister or to Joe and Gregor. He tries to visit Dorothy but she won’t answer his phone calls. He guesses she knows that he shot Marius and doesn’t want anything to do with a man like him. He is surprised that so many people in town stuck up for him, knowing that many thought he did it. He is happy but also worried because “something bad was still on its way” (309).

Annie and Gordon continue to trap beavers to sell the pelts, but Annie feels guilty about killing a beaver family. She notes that “something in me has weakened since I’ve come home” (310). Later that evening, after eating beaver tail for dinner, they watch a movie. Annie is attracted to Gordon and initiates sex with him; this time he responds to her advances. The sex is amazing, and the two become closer as the days go on.

Annie heads to the hospital to talk to Will and finds his room packed with people. She fears the worst as she enters, but her mom tells her that Will “reached up his hands in the air and shook them like a Pentecostal. Then he tore his air tubes out” (314). Gregor, Will’s friend, tells Annie that she really is a healer, that her words have worked. Everyone is elated, but Eva reminds them that Will still has a long road to recovery and that this doesn’t mean all is well.

Despite the joy, Annie is overwhelmed and just wants to talk to her uncle alone. She wants to finish her story about arriving back home and finding him dying in the hospital.