A Mercy

The first chapter begins in the year 1690, with 16-year-old Florens writing to a specific individual that she must go and find. The chapter is written in a stream of consciousness style, with Florens’s thoughts, sometimes fragmented and incoherent, beginning to shape the narrative for the reader. The language is also often broken, or colloquial; things are occasionally misspelled. Florens has secretly learned to read and write as a child from a Reverend, and she uses what she remembers now to tell her story. Florens leaves with a letter to find this individual, whom she loves deeply. Later, the reader will discover that the person she is in love with is the Blacksmith. Despite being desperate to see him, she is terrified because the farm is all she knows. Florens writes, “To get to you I must leave the only home, the only people I know. Lina says from the state of my teeth I am maybe seven or eight when I am brought here” (5).

Lina, an Indigenous woman that raised Florens, plays a large role in her life, acting as a surrogate mother of sorts.