A Year of Marvelous Ways

Marvelous is growing older and frailer. Drake notices she disappears more often, taking her boat up the Great River to visit her mother’s portrait in the museum. One day, Drake found her asleep with her boat going in circles. Concerned for her safety, he begins taking on chores to make her life easier, such as foraging, fetching rations, and cleaning. He sees her struggle every night to cross the riverbed to light a candle at the church. To help her, Drake decides to build a simple wooden bridge from the mainland to the church island. He begins the hard work of digging trenches for the bridge’s foundation. As he rests, Marvelous brings him tea, and he is overcome with a deep sense of connection and belonging to the land and its history.

Peace hires a chimney sweep to clear the bakehouse’s oven flue and then thoroughly scrubs the entire space. The two upstairs bedrooms feel sad and unwelcoming, so she decides to sleep downstairs. Her belongings arrive, including furniture, baking supplies, and the old bakehouse sign, “GENTLY WITH PEACE” (194). She works through the night, stoking the oven and baking her first dozen sourdough loaves. 

The next morning, Peace sits outside in her rocking chair. Finding the village empty, she rings Mrs. Hard’s ship’s bell she found inside. The sound causes the upstairs windows to unlatch on their own.

The smell of freshly baked bread drifts from the bakehouse to the creek, rousing Drake and Marvelous. They follow the scent through the woods and across the meadow, where they see smoke rising from the bakehouse chimney. As they approach, the front door opens, and a tall, broad young woman appears. Marvelous instantly recognizes her as Peace Rundle, the last baby she ever delivered. Peace, in turn, recognizes the old woman who brought her into the world, and she runs to embrace her.

Peace serves her fresh bread to Drake and Marvelous, who notices Peace’s shy attraction to Drake. Afterward, the three walk up the High Road to the last cottage, which Marvelous identifies as the former home of Peace’s parents. The cottage is locked and decaying. Drake picks the lock with hairpins, and they enter the dark, gloomy interior. Peace is shocked to find a dilapidated piano, and Marvelous explains that her father won it playing cards and played beautifully before grief and anger consumed him. Marvelous shows Peace a “rumor-catcher”—a willow hoop with shells and feathers. She made it for Peace’s mother to protect her from the cruel gossip of the villagers after Simeon’s suicide.

In the bay, a quiet local fisherman named Ned Blaney is out on his boat. He listens to music on the radio, drinks tea, and thinks briefly of the war before raising his cup to the sky in memory of his brother.

Life at the creek becomes busier. Drake continues working on the bridge, and Marvelous feels revitalized by the activity. A postman arrives with a letter for Marvelous that has been rerouted multiple times. It is a postcard from Henry, the American soldier she had advised before D-Day. He writes that he is now studying at a university and thanks her for the advice to “go left.” Henry explains that he ran left during the chaos at Omaha Beach while the soldiers who went right were killed. Marvelous is moved to tears.

That night, Drake takes blue boat paint and neatly scripts Simeon Rundle’s full name onto the village war memorial, where it had been missing. Peace discovers the tribute as the sun sets. She feels a deep sense of gratitude and peace, believing things have finally been put right for her brother. Later, she kneels by the rumor-catcher in her garden, hoping to hear the sound of a new love.

Drake and Peace separately find notes on their doors reading “DRINKS AT 7. NO NEED TO DRESS UP” (207). Nevertheless, both make an effort with their appearance. When Peace arrives at the boathouse, Drake guides her to the waiting boat.

Marvelous, Drake, and Peace take the boat to the Amber Lynn, a fishermen’s tavern. As they talk, Drake thinks of Missy with less pain than previously. When he describes Missy as his “horizon,” Marvelous dismisses horizons as “untouchable” and therefore useless. Concealing her disappointment, Peace realizes Drake is not open to love. 

While ordering more drinks, Peace leaves a loaf of her bread on the bar with a card to advertise the new bakery. From a bench outside, the fisherman Ned Blaney watches Peace, captivated, but is too shy to speak to her. 

In the pub, Marvelous tells the story of how, in her youth, women did not fish due to the fishermen’s superstition that women in a boat brought bad luck. However, she defied this tradition and was protected by a fiction spread by an old-timer named Cundy. Cundy claimed that Marvelous kept a powerful sea spirit, or Bucca, in a bottle, scaring the other fishermen, though in truth she kept only a small seahorse. 

Outside the pub, Ned Blaney tells Peace and Drake how the old-timers claim Marvelous was “the most beautiful woman they had ever seen” (220). A look of understanding passes between Ned and Peace, and he returns home full of hope.

Ned Blaney arrives at the creek in his fishing boat and helps Drake maneuver the newly built bridge into its final position. Afterward, Ned asks where to find the bakehouse. He runs there, arriving just as Peace is closing. Though she is sold out of bread, he buys stale scones and gives her a package of fresh whiting and oysters as a gift. He shucks an oyster for her, and she is struck by the taste and the gesture. The encounter marks the beginning of their courtship, and Ned begins writing her letters to express the feelings he cannot say aloud.

As her courtship with Ned Blaney progresses, Peace feels uncertain and confides in Drake that she needs to be sure he is the one. Later, she, Drake, and Marvelous stand on the new bridge and see the river filled with starfish. Marvelous says that Jack used to tell children that starfish are fallen stars who help lost people get home. The sight prompts Peace to ask about Jack, and Marvelous reveals he was a frustrated poet who worked in the undersea mines. He gained the name “Singer Jack” as he brightened the other miners’ dark days with his resounding songs.

Marvelous recounts that, when she was 24, she performed a midsummer divination, dropping an egg white into water to reveal the face of her true love. Soon after, a handsome miner named Jimmy arrived, and his face seemed “a good enough match” to the image in the glass (235). They began a passionate affair, and she became known as “Jimmy’s Girl.” One day, Jimmy’s younger, quieter brother, Jack, visited. Marvelous felt an instant, powerful connection to Jack that filled her with doubt about her relationship with Jimmy. 

Marvelous recounts how her relationship with Jimmy deteriorated when he was unfaithful. Jack often visited to make excuses for his brother, and Marvelous found herself falling in love with him. Her health declined from unhappiness. One day, Jack came to her alone and said that it was his face, not Jimmy’s, that she saw in the egg white divination. Marvelous kissed him, her love for him confirmed, and all her doubt vanished.

Marvelous’s story continues. Jimmy, sensing he was losing Marvelous to Jack, impulsively proposed marriage. Jack publicly supported the proposal, concealing his devastation. Secretly, Jack and Marvelous planned to escape to Australia together. However, on the morning they were due to leave, an accident occurred at the mine. Jack ran inside and retrieved his brother’s dead body.

After Jimmy’s death, Jack felt his relationship with Marvelous was cursed. He announced he was leaving but would return. Devastated, Marvelous began her nightly ritual of lighting a candle in the church. 

Jack finally returned 20 years later after the First World War. Now known as Paper Jack, he wore a coat made of newspapers reporting the horrors of war. Jack showed Marvelous a dead chaffinch he unsuccessfully tried to heal and asked her to bring them both back to life. Marvelous placed the chaffinch in her hair under a scarf, burned the newspapers, and tenderly cared for Jack. The couple spent a blissful year together and declared themselves married on the creek shore before Jack died of lung disease. Marvelous begged Death to take her too, but he ignored her request. 

Three days later, Marvelous sensed her mother’s presence and knew she should take Jack’s body to the creek and give it up to the waters, which were full of starfish. However, the villagers dismissed her pleas and buried Jack. Afterward, Marvelous removed her headscarf and the chaffinch emerged, alive. Retreating to the woods, she lived there naked until a doctor found and treated her.

In the present, Marvelous collapses and falls asleep, exhausted from telling her story. Drake kisses her forehead and blows out the candle.

Unsure if Ned Blaney is the right man for her, Peace performs the same egg-white divination that Marvelous described in her story. With Marvelous and Drake present, she drops an egg white into a glass of water. When she uncovers the glass three hours later, the image that has formed clearly resembles Ned, confirming that he is the one she is meant to be with.

During the hottest days of summer, on his 28th birthday, Drake receives a postcard from Australia. It is from Missy Hall and states, “I saw the mermaid” (261).

The revelation that Missy is alive shatters Drake as he realizes the foundation of his guilt and grief has been a lie. He spirals into a violent depression, isolating himself and destroying things in the boathouse. 

One morning, Ned Blaney finds Drake in this state, carries him out of the boathouse, and takes him to his own cottage. After Drake eats and sleeps, he begins to recover. He starts joining Ned on his fishing boat, finding solace in the routine and the quiet companionship. Out on the open water, Ned hands Drake a cup of Scotch and says, “To life” (264). Drake drinks and then takes the tiller, looking toward the horizon. Knowing Missy is out there living her life brings him peace.

As autumn arrives, Marvelous senses her life is ending. She stands outside her caravan, taking in her surroundings one last time before going inside to prepare. She feels a moment of panic but then has a vision of her great love, Jack, appearing young and healthy. He joins her on the bed, and they kiss before getting under the covers together.

Drake senses something is wrong and finds Marvelous’s caravan empty. On her bed, she has laid out several significant objects from her life, including her lipstick and a postcard. Drake finds the key to her Book of Truths, unlocks it, and discovers the pages are blank, except for a hidden photograph of Paper Jack with the words “Your father” written on the back. Stunned, Drake realizes that Jack Francis is his biological father—the same man whose image he had unknowingly recreated in his childhood collage.

Drake finds Marvelous sitting on the mooring stone, frail and cold. She takes his hand and leads him across the new bridge to the church island. There, she shows him a gravestone he had never noticed before, inscribed with the name JACK FRANCIS. She confirms that this is his father, saying “It’s your story […] It’s only ever been your story” (272). As Drake kneels at the grave, Marvelous walks toward the river. Her clothes and skin seem to fall away as she dives into the water, finally going home.