“When it was over, Mamaw had to shake me to get me to move. I dreaded walking out. I wasn’t invisible anymore. I was never invisible.” 

Speaking out at the hearing awakens a sense of power and purposes in Dawn that she never realized was there, but once she uses her voice, she can no longer deny that she has no power. Prior to speaking out at the meeting, she had many reasons to feel invisible: she’s a kid, she’s a girl, and she’s poor, in other words she belongs to a population most often swept under the rug and ignored. Dawn recognizes the absurdity of her insignificance, and how people like herself are manipulated into submission; being silenced in this manner is harming their lives.

“‘Them state people are just going through the motions’ Mamaw said as we crossed the river at Blue Bear Creek. ‘They know what their job is, they have their orders, and they don’t come from us.’ Mamaw faced me as she spoke. Her eyes glittered like stones in a stream. ‘You got to change their orders. You got to change the people telling them what to do. You got to make those people feel the pinch.’ I liked to see Mamaw’s eyes glitter, but I didn’t know how she was going to do what she was talking about.”

Mamaw feels that their fight is often futile. Even with the support of the government, they don’t have enough power to fight the monopoly the coal companies have on the land. They attend meeting after meeting where they never accomplish anything. While Mamaw’s passion still stays strong even when facing setbacks, Dawn can’t help but feel disillusioned.

“I seen broken glass sitting on a Styrofoam tray like meat comes on at the grocery store. It crossed my mind my cousins poisoned that dog.”

Speaking out against the coal companies is not only unpopular, but also dangerous. Tensions are so high that citizens resort to violence to retaliate against those who speak out. Duane is a possible victim of retaliation, as he discovers that his dog died from eating broken glass after Duane testifies against the coal companies. 

“Maybe I lose my foot and become a drunk and grieve over it and become a drunk and then a drug addict like Momma. No. I wouldn’t be like her. Not the same mistake. A different mistake.”

When Dawn falls into the hole and injures her foot, she imagines what would happen if she lost her foot. She thinks for a minute that she might become a helpless drunk like her mother, but she knows that deep inside her she is strong enough to not make the same mistakes her mother did.

“There was a spot of color on my mother’s cheek, just a spot of the way she was before Daddy died, seeping through like blood seeping through a rag. I wanted to wring my real mother out from the rag her body had become. I wanted to wring that rag out over a bucket, pour what I wrung out into some kind of mold, like a jello mold of my old momma, my good momma, and make her back into what she was.”

Dawn’s mother was always been so unstable. Before her dad died, Momma was beautiful, bubbly, and a loving mother to Dawn. She sees a flicker of her old mother in a moment of vulnerability, and Dawn is overcome with longing for those better days.

“Denny said ain’t nothing going to happen to me. Said they need me to run my mouth. Said somebody had to say what needed saying. Said he and his daddy had my back, even if they had to say ugly things to my face.”

Denny’s support of Dawn illustrates just how complex the fight against mining in Canard is. Denny works for the coal companies and sees that Dawn’s fight is for the benefit of all, even though her success would cause problems for him. 

“My leg was bouncing I was so mad. To calm myself down, I thought how Mamaw took me and Momma in when things at Hubert’s got crazy. I thought how she took me walking through the woods when I was agitated.” 

Dawn feels most secure and loved when she is with Mamaw. Mamaw represents her refuge, and even when they are not together, Dawn can recall the peace she feels with Mamaw and can bring herself back from her anger.

“There wasn’t any ‘well but’ with me. I was a freak, soft and four-eyed, with black fingernail polish, a dead daddy, a drunk momma, a crack head brother, outlaw uncles, and divorced grandparents who made trouble for people every time they come down off the ridge.” 

Dawn resents the way people reduce her to her family and background without seeing who she really is. Dawn knows she has more potential than meets the eye but struggles to overcome the obstacles that keep her from living her dream life.

 “I wanted so to go in Mamaw’s and take a shower, but I didn’t want to talk enviro-strategy with Mamaw. I wanted to go somewhere and be clean and beautiful. I wanted to wear a dress. I wanted to have my picture made. I wanted to rest my hand in the crooked elbow of a boy who loved me. I wanted our favorite song playing. I wanted my head on his shoulder.” 

Despite caring deeply about supporting Mamaw and her anti-coal efforts, all Dawn really wants is to have a normal, quiet life. Her life is already filled with chaos and drama, so she craves a normal teenage girl dream.

“I got drunk in the snow, on a narrow patch of land Mamaw owned. Hell deep. Heaven high. No divided mineral. Do you know what I mean? Fuck you if you don’t. Do you remember what it was like to be fifteen? Do you know what it is like to grow up in Kentucky? Either you do or you don’t. Ain’t no use explaining if you don’t.”

Dawn feels that no one understands her pain and doesn’t care to try. She speaks to the stereotypes about people from Appalachia like her and resents the way she and the people and place she loves have been reduced to a caricature.

“He didn’t say nothing to me. But I could tell he was feeling his power over me. Him and his wavy brown hair was feeling their power over me same way every square-ass schoolteacher, every girl knew exactly what everybody else is wearing to school that day soon as her precious feet hit the floor in the morning, every kid who had both parents at home, got what was on his goddamn life felt their power over me. I narrowed me eyes at Keith Kelly, and he didn’t do anything, sat there like a stone, like a clock, like a face on a campaign billboard.” 

Keith Kelly represents a lot of things that Dawn hates: first, he works for a coal company. But unlike Denny, he is demeaning and aggressive to Dawn about her activism. Second, he is having an affair with her mother, despite being closer to Dawn’s age than Momma’s. Finally, he isn’t afraid to assert his power over her, even when it is unwarranted.

“My heart dropped when Decent asked me that. Decent was freedom to me. Not chained by man nor kid. She rode her own personality like it was a horse. She wasn’t good looking. Lumpy face, crooked smile. But in that moment I saw I had to have a boy to have something to talk about. I didn’t want a boy.” 

Dawn is thoughtful and recognizes the complicated nature of her feelings, especially concerning her crush on Willett. She demonstrates her maturity and an ability to question the way society operates. Her ability to see through nuances and contradictions of a question or idea proves to be a superpower in many facets of her life.

“I wondered what it was, wondered what was off inside of her. She was scared of something, running like an animal from fire. But maybe it was the opposite. Maybe she was chasing something, something she’d lost. Like when Daddy died. Maybe she was running to keep from thinking, wind in her face blowing the things she didn’t want to think about out of her mind.” 

Dawn is thoughtful and empathic; she is able to see her mother beyond her failures. She knows that Momma’s behavior comes from a painful place and only wants her mother to move beyond her grief.

“‘Don’t give up,’ he said, reaching for my chin. ‘You hear me?’” 

Dawn’s father visits her in a dream and tells her not to give up. It’s unclear what exactly he is referring to, whether the fight against the coal companies or Dawn’s fight to save herself, but either way, Dawn is comforted by her dad’s presence.

“He drove a plain truck and worked in the coal mines ever since Albert had been born and he married Momma. The law didn’t come to our house. There wasn’t glass breaking and loud laughing all night long at our house. All that stuff went on across the road.”

Dawn notes the stark contrast between her father and the other men in her life. Her father was reliable and patient and provided stability for his family. After his death, their family fell apart, and Dawn lost a big part of herself.

“‘Is this what you thought life would be?’ I asked Hubert. ‘Pretty much,’ Hubert said.” 

Dawn often feels like she is destined for the same fate of her family members. Here we see that Hubert, too, predicted the same life, and he was right. In contrast to Hubert, Dawn resolves to achieve the big things she knows she is capable of.

“I wanted to be part of what my mother was going through, but I was too young. There were simpler games I should be playing, games that wouldn’t make my stomach hurt so bad. I felt like I was watching a show people my age weren’t supposed to be watching, except that the show was my life, and I was watching by myself.” 

Dawn wants to be a supportive daughter but knows that she cannot be the person her mother needs. Moreover, she recognizes how inappropriate it is for a parent to rely on a child for emotional support. Dawn’s life has experienced a lot of trauma before the age of 16.

“I knew in my heart I was not dangerous, and that I did not want to be either. My head landed in June’s lap, her hand on my hair, and I just breathed and breathed in June’s private cove.” 

Dawn struggles to control her anger, but she also knows that she is more than just her outburst. Despite struggling to understand her feelings much of the time, Dawn shows considerable maturity in her ability to regulate her anger. While she does tend to drown her pain in alcohol like her mother, she also demonstrates her ability to cope by seeking the comfort of someone she trusts, like Mamaw or June. In this way, Dawn shows that she can overcome her pain in a way that her mother never could.

“I could hear the music and laughs and whopping. I was glad those people were there, glad they were having a good time. They seemed so not hurtful to me. I tried to imagine myself a regular part of them. I tried to imagine myself walking across that meadow in each of the four seasons. I put myself on a tractor, mowing the meadow. I put myself in a room full of women, women like Sarah, working on a quilt and talking about smart stuff and feeling like things were getting better because all the people closest to me were working to make things better.” 

While at a party in Tennessee with Aunt June, Dawn admires the crowd of artists, intellectuals, activists, and hippies who have gathered to celebrate. She tries to imagine what life would be like if she moved in with June, and she envisions a happier, full future free of the turmoil she is accustomed to in Canard. 

“Blue bear wasn’t just about winning a fight. Everything I could see from Mamaw’s porch, every place I had run through on a four-wheeler, every birdsong and spring flower, every ferny frond that come up beside a yellow muddy trail—all that kept me alive as if it was the air I was breathing.” 

The fight to save Blue Bear is really important to Dawn. It is more than just fighting the coal companies; the mountain holds her history and that of her family. Losing the mountain would mean losing a part of herself.

“Those coal miners who had been so good to me, who had loved me through my tree-hugging ways, needed mountains and woods more than any of us. They loved it here, and they had to tear it up to stay. The full hard hardness of their lot came down on me that winter night, and I knew maybe not them but other coal-mining people would be mad at me, would hate me, but after that night, I never was mad at them, not the ones who lived here with me, not the ones taking their own sorrow and joy from what was left of these trees, these rocks, these rustling waters.”

Dawn sees the complexity of the fight against the coal mining companies. She doesn’t see them as her enemies, but rather as people from her community who care just as much about their town as she does.

“I was not looking for a boy. I was looking for something I could lean on, something deeper rooted.” 

Aunt June tries to convince Dawn that Willett comes from a nice family and would be good for her. Dawn loses her trust in him when she feels he deceived her about who he really is. Dawn needs someone she can count on and doesn’t want to settle for someone she doesn’t trust.

“What seemed most important? Was it Blue Bear Mountain and saving the land, protecting the earth forever and ever so that little babies not even thought up would have mountains to look on and scamper around in? Was it saving my own skin, somehow getting passed what happened to Keith Kelly, getting shed of Hubert and crazy outlaw ways?” 

Dawn must make a decision about where she wants to live and what she wants to do with her life. She is forced to make big decisions that test her values, with serious implications for her future. She realizes that with either decision, she loses something.