Outer Dark

Content Warning: This section contains a depiction of infanticide.

This chapter finds Rinthy living with an unidentified farmer. At dusk, she sits curled up on the porch, surrounded by flowers, as the farmer returns from plowing the field. Rinthy doesn’t look him in the eye and says little. The farmer is indignant that she never speaks to him. Finally, she says goodnight.

The farmer sits by a lamp in the dark. He’ll dream all night that he’s back at the plow, overturning the earth behind the mule in an endless cycle. A moth flies to the lamp, and the farmer crushes it with his fist.

In the middle of the night, Rinthy absconds. She pauses at the threshold, “poised between the maw of the dead and loveless house and the outer dark like a frail thief” (215). She sets out along the road. At dawn, she hears a horse approaching and hides in the bushes. A gigantic emaciated black horse passes riderless against the low sun.

Spring comes again, marking a year since Rinthy gave birth. Resting beside the road, Culla hears rumbling in the distance, and a drove of hogs bursts into sight. One of the drovers, Vernon, wades through the herd to the rock where Culla sits.