The River Has Roots

The first four chapters were primarily expositional, establishing the novella’s tone, setting, and characters. Chapters 5 through 8 shift focus to the story’s two major conflicts. The first is Esther’s internal conflict between her love for her sister and her desire to be with Rin in Arcadia. The second is the external conflict between Pollard and Esther, which leads to Esther’s death.

This external conflict both mirrors and subverts the central conflict of “The Two Sisters,” much like the novella’s other deviations from the traditional formula. As Esther herself reflects, folklore and songs abound with sisters pitted against each other, usually resulting in the elder sister murdering the younger in a fit of jealousy. These tales perpetuate patriarchal and sexist attitudes about competition between women and the value of men’s attention in their lives. The story of Esther and Ysabel resists this sexist formula. Esther rejects the role of jealous sister and murderer, opting to support and love Ysabel at all costs. Instead, she is cast in the role of murder victim, with Pollard as the villain. This narrative construction contributes significantly to the third major theme, Resistance to Patriarchal Oppression, in which the resistance is enacted by both the characters within the narrative and the act of storytelling itself.

In this framing, Pollard represents the violence of patriarchal oppression of women. In particular, his actions unmask the underlying violence of the “soft” or “benevolent” sexism of gallantry toward women. Esther consistently senses that Pollard’s ingratiating behavior and gift giving are performative and controlling. Her intuition proves true when, after seeing Esther and Rin together, Pollard drops the veneer of polite behavior and reveals the depth of his jealousy, greed, and violence. Pollard’s brutal attack starkly contrasts with Rin’s joyous love in the preceding scene. Though Rin fears the coldness and cruelty of the human world, they are willing to sacrifice their own comfort for Esther’s sake, proving that genuine love is kind and accepting, not grasping. Rin’s nonbinary identity heightens the contrast, as they are not aligned with the patriarchal system that Pollard embodies. 

These chapters also introduce the final major character, Agnes Crow. The story reveals little about this character, but the details it does provide position her as a liminal figure: She is human but lives in Arcadia, she uses the magic of grammar, and she may or may not be a witch, as she does not use the term herself but does not object when others call her such. Her name reinforces her archetypal status, as crows are often associated with magic or the boundaries between worlds in European folklore. In keeping with this, her primary importance lies in her role as a wise woman and mentor; she helps the two sisters find their way back to the human world as children and then later helps Esther regain her true form, underscoring her relationship to borders and transitions. She is also closely associated with Arcadia itself; Chapter 8, which formally introduces her, is a flashback sequence that also provides necessary context regarding the nature of Arcadia. 

As before, the motif of wordplay is crucial in this section. Metaphor, double entendres, puns, and riddles appear in these chapters, reinforcing The Power of Language. In particular, language functions as a mediator and a mode of flirtation between Esther and Rin, as evidenced by the song that Esther sings and the riddle that Rin passes to her in a note. At the same time, language reveals the divide between them, with the magic of grammar—the slippage of language—forming a boundary that one or the other must breach in order to be together. This same kind of wordplay also binds Esther and Ysabel together. In devising a secret song between them, they create a connection that will lead them back to each other if they are ever separated, which becomes pivotal in the final chapter.