The Vaster Wilds

by Lauren Groff

She shuddered and had to put from her thought the tortures this bad man would do unto her if indeed she were caught. For even a good man was more deadly than the worst of bears, and she had seen what even a blind ancient bear with its teeth pulled out of its black gums and its claws cut off and its eyes blinded in pink cross-hatching could do.

And perhaps, she thought, god was neither trinity nor singular but multiple, as various as the many living things that did live upon the earth. Perhaps god is all. Perhaps god already lived within all. And this place and these people here did not need the english to bring god to them.

The voice that had once in a while chimed into her ear said, very gently, And what if, girl, god is all; does that mean that, within the all that god is, there is nothing?

No, she said, for the blight of the english will come to this remoteness as well. It will spread into this land and infect this land and devour the people who were here first; it will slaughter them, diminish them. The hunger inside the god of my people can only be sated by domination. They will dominate until there is nothing left, then they will eat themselves. I am not of them. I will not be.

To be alone and surviving is not the same as being alive, she understood.