The Vaster Wilds

by Lauren Groff

Finally, though, a spark fell and she cradled it with dry needles and dead leaves and breathed upon it, and the spark was shy, it nearly flicked itself dead again, but she prayed and blew again, and it grew, it was hungry, it ate a small bite of the dead leaf and found that it wanted more, it licked up and became flickering joyous flame. She fed it until it became a small and hot fire that she was so grateful for and so delighted in its warmth that she had the longing to put it in her own mouth to eat it up. The flame danced prettily, moving its pert little head all around like a living creature. When she was sure it was strong enough that it would not be extinguished, she spat into it for good luck.

The world, the girl knew, was worse than savage, the world was unmoved.

The tree she held smelled of sweetness and musk and the sap stirring deep within its rings, for the tree knew it would be spring quite soon and that out of this white sleep there would arise the greenness of new life.

For, if a bear could feel awe, then a bear could certainly know god. And if a bear could know god in his own bear way, then a bear had a soul, and she could not see how it was that man could feel it was in his right to slaughter such beasts, for in slaughtering the bear’s body, man was also slaughtering the beast’s soul, which also yearned toward god. And she began to see now that when god created man and woman together and said to let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, perhaps by dominion god did not mean the right to kill or suppress the fish, the fowl, the cattle, and every creeping thing.

And this thought made her shake, for if the gospel was changeable between species, then god was not immoveable. Then god was changeable according to the body god spoke through. And that god could change according to the person in the moment the soul was encountering god. And this meant that when the godliest of the ministers in the city and in this awful place, back in the fort, spoke on god’s behalf they were only speaking a mote of the far greater truth. They were only speaking the part of god that they themselves could glimpse. And this truth was only as small as they themselves were small.