54 pages • 1 hour read
Rebecca RossA River Enchanted
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 14-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “A Song for Earth”
Part 2, Chapter 14 Summary
Frae watches Mirin work on her weaving. Torin arrives and asks Mirin to weave an enchanted plaid for Sidra that’s as strong as steel, to protect her from another attack. Mirin motions for Frae to go outside, as the news of Sidra’s attack is very frightening for the young girl. Frae helps Jack bundle hay, and when she says she was nervous he wouldn’t like her, Jack tells her that she’s the little sister he always wanted. Mirin storms into the yard to shout at Jack for not telling her about his upcoming wedding to Adaira. She questions his intentions and his plan if he doesn’t return to the university, but Jack tells her he will become Bard of the East. Mirin begins work on Jack’s wedding garments.
Jack passes through town, where he’s the topic of gossip, to meet Adaira to summon the earth spirits. They ride to the Earie Stone together. Jack plays the song, and the spirits manifest again. He feels himself sinking into the earth and sees flowers growing out of his fingertips. Adaira tells the spirits he is hers and they cannot claim him. Lady Whin of the Wildflowers and the Earie Stone release Jack from their thrall. They say of Adaira that “it is her” (240), which Jack does not understand. Adaira asks them about the missing girls, and the spirits say that they are all alive and together. They cannot say who took them but reveal that he is not working alone. They disappear. As Jack and Adaira leave to report to Torin, Jack collapses. Adaira then realizes what the magic takes out of him, and what it took out of her mother. She is angry he withheld it from her but understands why he didn’t tell her. Jack recovers after taking the tonic, and they return to Sloane.
Part 2, Chapter 15 Summary
Jack, Torin, Alastair, and Mirin wait for Adaira in the thistle patch. Jack worries Adaira won’t come, but Mirin calms him and fusses over his outfit. Adaira then appears, flanked by Frae and Sidra. She approaches Jack, and they complete the handfasting, with Torin officiating and tying their hands together. They each get a necklace with half of a coin to signify their bond. Jack kisses Adaira’s hand to seal their union. Adaira thinks the time is too somber for a party, but Alastair arranges a feast in the hall anyway. Jack and Adaira have an awkward encounter with Callan, Adaira’s former love, who is now married with children. After the guests have eaten, Adaira unties herself from Jack so that he may play music.
Frae is moved by Jack’s music and thinks it will save them. Mirin cries tears of joy at the sound. Adaira is tired and leads Jack upstairs, preparing him for the ritual of some married couples waiting outside their bedroom until the marriage is consummated. Finally alone in Adaira’s bedroom, they drink wine and eat a tray of food brought by the servants. Jack asks Adaira if he can spend the nights with his mother and Frae to keep them safe, and she agrees, offering to send a guard tonight. Jack refuses, not wanting special treatment. Jack then asks Adaira about Callan, and she explains their past. Adaira loved Callan, but he used her to try to get a position in the guard. Jack shares his past with Gwyn, his girlfriend from university. Their relationship failed because music was more important to Gwyn, and Jack turned his heart to stone to not feel that pain again. Adaira then shows Jack the secret door connecting their chambers and says good night. Jack stays awake and begins composing a song for the wind spirits.
Part 2, Chapter 16 Summary
Jack and Adaira wait near the clan line for their meeting with Moray Breccan. Torin is upset that Adaira won’t let him accompany them. He worries that the Breccans will attack them and is hesitant to ask them about the Oreanna flower. Jack and Adaira take the crate of crops to trade and head toward a cave near the clan line. After a period of waiting, Moray appears and seems friendly, offering the trade. Moray pushes a boat across the water and over the clan line. Inside is an enchanted plaid; gra, a revered drink in the west; and the handle for a dirk that Moray promises to forge for Adaira in the future. Jack and Adaira then send over their offering of oats, barley, honey, and wine. Moray thanks them and asks when Adaira will visit the west. Adaira asks Moray to visit the east first, but he refuses, citing the number of Breccans killed by the guard. Adaira agrees to visit him and promises to write to him soon, then she asks about the Oreanna flower. Moray claims no knowledge of it. As they leave, Jack wonders whether Moray was truthful, or whether the trade was fair.
Torin returns to Sidra, angry about the idea of trading with the Breccans and the failure to gain information about the Oreanna flower. Sidra feels that he is chastising her for encouraging Adaira to pursue the trade relationship and for pushing to find out more about the flower. Sidra challenges his belief that the conflict with the Breccans is irreparable. Torin pushes back, angry that Sidra doesn’t understand the people he’s beaten and killed in the name of protecting the east from the Breccans. Sidra tells him it’s not too late to make reparation for the men he killed without cause. Torin asks if she’ll leave if he cannot change. Sidra tells him that she isn’t asking him to change because she loves him unconditionally, but suggests that perhaps, deep down, he wants to change. Torin is angry and leaves.
Part 2, Chapter 17 Summary
Frae wakes to the sound of a horse. When she looks outside, she sees a Breccan in their yard. She wakes Jack, and though he doesn’t see the Breccan outside, he finds a sword and goes to investigate. When Jack returns, he tells them he saw 10 Breccans, presumably on a raid, riding toward their neighbors’ croft. Mirin puts Jack’s enchanted plaid on him before he goes to alert the neighbors. Mirin sings Frae to sleep as Jack leaves.
Torin senses five Breccans crossing the line near the Elliots’ croft. Torin rides toward the intruders, his fear of losing the people he loves driving his need for violence. He loves Sidra but doesn’t know how to show it, and he is scared of her love and what it means. He runs into Jack, who tells him he saw 10 men, not the five Torin sensed. The Breccans set fire to the farm while the family is still inside, which is an escalation in violence. In the fighting, Torin is cut with an enchanted blade that makes him run away from the fray. Jack works to save the family from the burning house and put out the fire. Once everyone is safe, the Elliots hear the voice of their daughter, Eliza Elliot, who is one of the missing girls. Though they initially think they are hallucinating, she appears from the direction of Mirin’s croft, alive and safe.
Part 2, Chapters 14-17 Analysis
Jack and Adaira’s separate pasts become more and more significant as their relationship progresses. Adaira thinks, “She could see more of him now—the mist-laden years when he had dwelled on the mainland and she had roamed the isle” (263). The duality of Jack’s background as a Cadence inhabitant and mainland inhabitant mirrors his secret identity as half-Tamerlaine and half-Breccan. It also reinforces the divide between him and Adaira, as they spent many of their formative years in vastly different cultures. Yet, despite these differences, they bond over the shared experience of heartbreak. In a moment of emotional vulnerability, they are able to bridge the space between them, the years lost to both time and distance.
Secrets are an important piece of the culture of Cadence. Jack thinks, “Sometimes it felt as if keeping secrets on this isle was impossible, as if the best place for them might be in the woven pattern of a plaid, as Mirin knew best” (268). The references to the wind and the impossibility of keeping secrets foreshadow the reveal of Adaira’s Breccan identity. Mirin weaves secrets, like the secret of Adaira’s parentage, into the plaid, but the secret cannot stay buried for long due to the unpredictable magic of the wind, which seems to want to make Adaira’s secret known.
Danger lurks in Adaira’s meeting with Moray in the cave. Jack thinks, “The place felt dangerous, eager to drown them if they weren’t vigilant about the tide” (268). The imagery of drowning is significant, as it appears throughout the text. Jack nearly drowns when swimming to Cadence; the water spirits pull him and Adaira into the water and Jack fears drowning after he plays the ballad for them; Adaira feigns drowning to convince Jack to swim home from Kelpie Rock, and at the wedding, Jack thinks, “If we must drown, let us do so entwined” (248). Drowning is a fear of his, but his fear abates at Adaira’s side. The word “entwined” also harkens back to Jack’s thoughts about the imagery of Joan and Fingal’s death, which foreshadows the reveal of Adaira’s identity as a Breccan and creates an ominous tone for the start of their marriage.
Jack’s musical performance at the wedding feast underscores The Power of Music and Stories in Shaping Reality. Frae and Mirin are especially affected by the music, as is the land itself: “[T]he isle was stirring, coming to life. Frae was transfixed by its awakening, and she could almost swear that she felt a rumble beneath her feet, as if the stones were basking in the sound of Jack’s music” (256). The connection between music and the earth is a strong one in the east; Jack can summon the spirits with his songs, and the earth revels in the sound of his harp. This passage foreshadows the contrast between the music-loving land of the east, where spirits respond to the bard’s ballads, and the west, where music upsets the spirits and is banned.
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