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71 pages 2 hours read

Kim Liggett

The Grace Year

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2019

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Part 1, Chapters 16-32Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1: “Autumn”

Part 1, Chapter 16 Summary

The girls from the previous grace year have burned all of their supplies, leaving the new girls with nothing, just as their predecessors did to them. The rest of the encampment is filthy and left in shambles. They find a well, the only source of water in the encampment, and Tierney notices that “something about it [looks] unnatural” (97). The girls discover a tree that is full of severed fingers, toes, ears, and braids: The encampment has its own punishment tree where the girls discipline themselves and one another. Panic breaks out, and the girls start fighting over their own supplies. Tierney tries to urge the girls to trust each other and work together, but Kiersten quickly takes over as the commander of the group. Kiersten throws Tierney’s supplies over the fence, but Tierney remembers Gertrude’s warning and tries to ignore Kiersten’s provocations.

Part 1, Chapter 17 Summary

The girls find the larder with all of the food they will need to get them through the next year, and Helen finds a dove with a broken wing, which she keeps as a pet. Tierney teaches the girls how to collect wood and build a fire. During dinner, the girls begin drinking from the well, and the water has a “pungent, earthy aftertaste” (104). Tensions are high as they listen to the sounds outside of the barrier fence, and they wonder about the poachers who are lying in wait. They mention Olga Vetrone, the girl whom Hans loved, and how “something haunt[ed] her every move” until she went into the forest and never came back (105). Suddenly, Tierney’s pack comes flying over the fence, and Kiersten implies that she used her magic to bring it back.

Part 1, Chapter 18 Summary

The girls enter their lodging and find dirty mattresses and few beds. Tierney starts making suggestions on how to improve their living conditions, but Kiersten cuts her off and announces that the girls will embrace the same life of hardship and suffering “like every other grace year girl before [them]” (108). Tierney pleads with the girls to work together, but Kiersten orders the veiled girls to sleep on one side of the lodging and unveiled girls on the other. Gertrude and Tierney refuse to comply, and the girls settle in to sleep wherever they want.

Part 1, Chapter 19 Summary

Tierney dreams about the mysterious girl again, and when she awakens, she sees Gertrude staring at her. Gertrude promises that she won’t tell anyone she caught Tierney dreaming. Tierney tells Gertrude and some of the other girls about her recurring dream: the girl with the strange red flower, who leads her to a “gathering” of all the women in the county. This time, Tierney only dreamt of the two of them: The mysterious girl led her through the woods, toward the fence and the waiting poachers. Some of the girls wonder if it’s a premonition, a sign of Tierney’s magic. Tierney reminds the girls about a few years ago when a girl got “red itchy welts” and “all the other girls in her year fell down with the same” (116), but when Tierney’s father checked, only one girl was infected. The other girls “itched themselves raw” (116), even though they weren’t sick. She worries that if Kiersten claims to have magic, the other girls will follow her example and think they have magic too.

Part 1, Chapter 20 Summary

The next morning, Kiersten creates a calendar to mark the punishment days that coincide with full moons in Garner County. The veiled girls believe they are better than the unveiled girls, but Tierney and Gertrude align with the “unveiled, the unwanted […] undesirable” girls (119). They plan to build a rain collection barrel to avoid drinking from the well, and as Tierney teaches the girls how to use an axe to chop wood, the day passes in productive kinship. They start to feel dizzy and lightheaded, and although Tierney blames it on overexertion, the girls wonder if their magic is taking hold. They discuss the veiling ceremony, and Gertrude admits that she’s lucky because “it’s not every day a girl accused of depravity gets a veil” (126).

Part 1, Chapter 21 Summary

As Tierney, Gertrude, and the unveiled girls return with firewood, they are perplexed to find a strange ritual taking place. One of the girls, Ravenna, is attempting to use her magic to cause the sun to set, and Kiersten and the others are cheering her on. When the sun sets, Kiersten congratulates Ravenna, and she “pull[s] the red silk ribbon free” from Ravenna’s braid to signify that she has embraced her magic (128). Despite Tierney’s determination to stay logical, even she starts to wonder if there is something magical moving through the camp.

Part 1, Chapter 22 Summary

Tensions are high at dinner. A “high-pitched shriek” frightens the girls (130), and ghost stories start flying as paranoia spreads in the dark. Tierney tries to explain that the sound was likely an elk. When she mentions all of the work that she and the other girls did that day, Kiersten scoffs and says that Tierney is wasting their time because “[e]very day that goes by that [they] don’t embrace [their] magic is a day lost” (130). As the unveiled girls, Gertrude, and Tierney go to bed, Tierney wonders if Ravenna really made the sun set and whether or not Kiersten is right and Tierney is holding the other girls back from embracing their magic.

Part 1, Chapter 23 Summary

Weeks pass, and Kiersten and her followers “help” the girls discover their magic. Tierney notices that something is happening that she can’t explain: “dizzy spells, loss of appetite, double vision” (134), and a strange enlargement of their pupils. As the camp is engulfed in mysticism, the unveiled girls gravitate to Kiersten and her group. The girls start hurting themselves, and the things Tierney built to help the girls are smashed and broken at night. The girls blame the ghosts for this mischief, and although Tierney tries to hold on to reality and rally the girls to work together, even she must admit that “sitting around the fire talking about ghosts and magic is a lot more appealing than hard labor” (135). The division between Kiersten’s followers and Tierney’s friends grows.

Part 1, Chapter 24 Summary

One night, Gertrude finally opens up to Tierney about what was in the lithograph. The lithograph belonged to Kiersten’s father, and Kiersten showed it to Gertrude. Gertrude describes a pornographic image of a girl with a red grace year ribbon, totally naked, enjoying herself during a sexual act. Tierney is shocked by the idea, and she realizes that Kiersten ruined Gertrude’s life by showing her such an image and then blaming it on Gertrude when they were caught with it.

Part 1, Chapter 25 Summary

One morning, Tierney goes to chop wood by herself. Suddenly, Kiersten approaches her and tells Tierney that the girls need her help to embrace their magic. Kiersten accuses Tierney of using her magic to “[get] [her] father’s attention” and “[steal] Michael” (140). She implies that Tierney is selfish, and she threatens to hurt Gertrude—whom Tierney has begun to think of as Gertie—if Tierney doesn’t get on board and join the rest of the girls as they embrace their magic. Tierney refuses, and Kiersten announces that Tierney has done enough; Kiersten will “take it from here” (142).

Part 1, Chapter 26 Summary

Tierney finds Kiersten talking to Gertie because Kiersten wants the girls to gather for the full moon. All the girls have agreed except Tierney, and Gertie begs Tierney to give in and “accept [her] magic” (143). Tierney tries to tell Gertie that Kiersten is just using her and that she is trying to control the girls, but Gertie clams up and says she doesn’t want to talk to Tierney anymore.

Part 1, Chapter 27 Summary

That night, the girls gather, and Tierney reluctantly joins to see what Kiersten is up to. As thunder rumbles in the distance, Kiersten claims that the ghost of Eve, who “was once a grace year girl” who “laughed in the face of God” (146), is trying to communicate with them and that if they don’t embrace their magic, disaster will follow. Someone speaks up and says that she hears Eve talking to her, echoing everything Kiersten is saying. Kiersten expounds on the evil inside of every woman and how they must suffer “to rid [them]selves of the poison inside of [them]” (148). She warns the girls to not listen to Tierney, who is “[f]illing [their] heads with devious thoughts” and “[t]rying to distract [them] from the task at hand” (148). Kiersten orders a girl to take off her clothes, get on her hands and knees, and howl like an animal.

Part 1, Chapter 28 Summary

Tierney wakes up one morning and finds herself covered in blood. Her rain barrel has also been destroyed. As she tries to get water from the well, she comes across one of the girls singing at the gate. Tierney has a hallucination and sees “deep scratch marks embedded in the heavy timber” of the gate and “dark eyes staring in at [them]” (153). The singing girl explains that the predators can smell Tierney’s blood, and Tierney passes out.

Part 1, Chapter 29 Summary

Tierney awakes and finds Kiersten trying to convince Helen to go outside the barrier. Helen claims to be invisible, and Kiersten promises to “use [her] magic to make the poachers do what [she] want[s]” and keep Helen safe (155). When Helen goes outside the barrier, Tierney follows her. A poacher appears, “covered from head to toe in a gauzy charcoal fabric” (156). Tierney orders Helen to run while she distracts the poacher. The poacher is about to kill Tierney, but he sees her face and lets her escape. Tierney realizes this is the same poacher who spared her life once before. Back in the encampment, Kiersten publicly denounces Tierney for interfering. Kiersten declares that Tierney is a lost cause and that “[a]nyone caught consorting with this heretic will be punished” (158).

Part 1, Chapter 30 Summary

The next morning, the other girls refuse to speak to Tierney. She tries to drink from the well, but they won’t let her. Tierney thinks about the poacher who has spared her life twice now, and she wonders why. The girls refuse to share their food with Tierney, and one girl even “scrapes the bottom of the kettle for the last scoop and pours [the stew] onto the ground” (160). In the lodging house, the girls have stolen all of Tierney’s supplies, including her bed. Gertie manages to sneak a potato to Tierney, and Tierney wonders how long her punishment will last.

Part 1, Chapter 31 Summary

Kiersten and her followers wake Tierney and accuse her of stealing from the larder. They find the half-eaten potato in her pocket, and Kiersten’s mob “drags [Tierney] out of the lodging house toward the punishment tree” to cut out her tongue (163). Suddenly, Gertie comes forward and admits that she gave Tierney the food. Kiersten tells the entire gathering of girls why Gertie was charged with depravity: She tried to kiss Kiersten. Kiersten cuts off Gertie’s braid, and a “bloody patch of scalp” hangs off the end, “drip[ping] in the moonlight” (164).

Part 1, Chapter 32 Summary

Tierney confronts Kiersten and calls her a monster. Kiersten orders Tierney to “[e]mbrace [her] magic” or “face the woods” (165). Tierney tries to reason with Kiersten, but Kiersten banishes Tierney from the camp. Tierney begs for another chance, promising to do whatever Kiersten wants, but the girls chase her out. Tierney escapes to the woods, and through the fence, she senses someone watching her. She thinks it’s the same poacher that let her go twice before, but when she tries to speak to him, he throws a knife through the gap at her. Tierney passes out, and “a veil of darkness spread[s] over [her] like a thick lead blanket” (167).

Part 1, Chapters 16-32 Analysis

The girls must come to terms with their living conditions. The encampment is cut off from the rest of the world not only by the tall, imposing fence but also by the ever-present fear of the curse. The girls find a place of rot, ruin, and unspeakable cruelty in the camp, which Liggett uses to portray the theme of Inner Evil and Going Wild. Not only have the girls from the previous years inflicted brutal violence on one another, but they also engaged in outright sabotage by burning the supplies. The act is venomous and designed to uphold the trauma of past generations. Instead of setting future grace year girls up for success, the past group clearly views their successors as rivals, and the cycle of bitter cruelty continues year after year. Moreover, as the fence suggests, their trauma is supposed to stay contained in this special place.

Upon arrival, the girls quickly split into two groups: the veiled and the unveiled. Kiersten is the leader of the veiled girls, those who were chosen to be brides and who, apart from Gertie and Tierney, represent conformity. The girls who immediately side with Kiersten are the ones who embrace the system they’re in and who, like Kiersten, seek power by working within its confines. Tierney, on the other hand, finds community and solace with the unveiled girls, even though she herself is veiled, which further marks her as a symbol of Rebellion and Resistance to Tradition. This separation and ostracization of the “other” is a common trope in women’s literature. Many forms of media feature “mean girls” as members of the crowd, typically with a leader who is beautiful, popular, and cruel; these characters are juxtaposed against the protagonist, who is usually less classically beautiful, kinder, and nonconforming. Tierney, who rejects her strict, religious society and future as a wife and mother in favor of self-sufficiency, clashes with Kiersten, who weaponizes the idea of feminine “magic” to sow chaos and pain.

Tierney’s survival knowledge and personal independence draws the girls to her at first, but as time goes on, a change passes over them. Liggett builds up the theme of Inner Evil and Going Wild as deep seeds of paranoia, superstition, and mysticism take root and spread amongst the girls. Logic and practicality fall to the wayside as the girls give in to the allure of magic, community, and safety with Kiersten. Tierney refers to the girls as behaving like a pack of outskirt dogs, or like wolves, and Kiersten as the alpha among them. Kiersten tells the girls that as soon as they submit to her way of thinking, they can let their hair down and be like her: beautiful and powerful. The desperation to belong causes them to push Tierney out, even though Tierney has been nothing but kind and helpful. Despite the fact that Tierney’s gestures are true attempts at building community, the girls know that Kiersten is a representative of the society to which they must return, so they are drawn to her promises of power instead.

Liggett also uses Kiersten to exemplify The Use of Religion as a Weapon Against Women. Though the girls have left the county, the influence of their upbringing carries over to the grace year camp. The existence of a punishment tree, just like the one back at their home, shows that the girls have internalized their teachings, to the extent that they will hurt even each other in the name of religion and purity. Gertie’s reputation amongst the girls is another sign of this, as is Gertie’s relief over being veiled, even though Tierney’s narration makes it clear that Mr. Fallow had his previous wife killed in favor of a younger, more fertile bride. Gertie even turns away from Tierney to follow Kiersten, despite the fact that Kiersten is at fault for pinning the sin of “depravity” on Gertie in the first place; when Gertie admits to secretly helping Tierney, Kiersten uses this same incident—adding accusations of sexual harassment—as further reason to “punish” her.

Liggett amplifies the psychological aspects of this thriller during the nighttime gatherings. Kiersten and the other girls who have “embraced their magic” tell ghost stories and elevate the fear of the other girls (165). Liggett speaks to the power of suggestion when Kiersten convinces the girls that they are feeling, seeing, and hearing things like the voice of Eve calling out to them. Tierney’s skepticism is also called into question when reality begins to blur, as it is not yet revealed that the girls are drinking contaminated well water. Still, Tierney’s anecdote about the grace year girls who all claimed to have a skin rash becomes more relevant as autumn progresses. The rash hints that there is some scientific explanation for their altered mental states; on top of that, it proves the power of the mind. The girls in Tierney’s group have convinced themselves that the magic is real, just like the uninfected girls scratched themselves raw even though they weren’t really sick. Tierney worries that the girls will lose themselves in this doomed game of Follow the Leader, but there is little she can do now that she has been ostracized.

These chapters end on a note of high tension. Tierney is driven out of the camp, which no longer holds any semblance of safety for her. Her only alternative is the woods, but these are just as dangerous. However, Tierney’s encounters with an as yet unnamed poacher subvert everything she has been taught. The poacher spares her twice and—despite Kiersten taking the credit—is likely the one who tosses her lost pack back over the fence. Although Part 1, Chapter 32 ends with Tierney losing consciousness just as the poacher seems to attack her, these past encounters hint that there is more to the situation.

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