Summary
When Kya is nineteen, mistrustful of people after Tate's abandonment, she entirely separates from the social world. Still craving human connection, Kya watches Chase Andrews and his friends, now grown up, playing on the beach. Though Kya longs to join them, she hides, as the shame and fear of "being labeled as marsh trash kept her behind the oak tree." However, Chase Andrews catches Kya's eye. Desire and loneliness compel her to return to the beach to look for him the next day.
Hoping to run into Chase, Kya visits Jumpin's store more frequently because "being noticed by someone had lit a social cord" in her. At the shop, Chase introduces himself and invites Kya to go on a picnic. Then, contrasting Chase with Tate, the text reveals that Tate went back to see Kya years before. However, after witnessing Kya's primal fear when another fisherman passed by, Tate realized she would never be able to occupy the academic world. Thus, Tate left Kya without explanation, though the decision haunts him for years.
On her date with Chase, Kya reveals her extensive knowledge of shells and wildlife. Chase introduces Kya to foods she has never seen before, like soda pop and homemade cake. When Chase tries to seduce her, Kya resists, surprising them both. Though Kya feels she is ready for sex, Kya is offended that Chase did so little to woo her.
The next day, Chase apologizes, and Kya, desperate for companionship, gives him another chance. Chase takes Kya to the fire tower, promising "it's a great way to see the marsh." On the tower, Kya gives Chase a necklace she made from the shells they found on the beach, and he wears it. Then, Chase convinces Kya to bring him to her house. As Chase looks through her living space and collections, Kya feels "exposed, as if someone were filleting her like a fish." She asks Chase what he wants with her, and he explains that he is attracted to her and wants to get to know her.
After a visit from Chase, Kya spies Tate in the marsh, professorially collecting water samples. She believes he is "out of her league" and hides from him, like when she was a child. Later, Tate decides to row to Kya's house and try and win her back. On the verge of completing his Ph.D. and applying for a position researching the local marsh, Tate finally believes he and Kya can be together. However, he sees Kya kiss Chase and leaves without speaking to her.
As their relationship progresses, Chase pressures Kya for sex, claiming he has "been pretty patient" and deserves to be with her physically. Despite his manipulation and her own desires, Kya rejects him, fearing that he will leave, just like everyone else in her life.
A year into their relationship, Chase begins to discuss marriage and offers to take Kya into Asheville, so she can "start gettin' out in tha world a bit" before they marry. Kya does not know "if she felt about Chase the way a wife should," but is excited that their marriage would let her be part of a family and live an easier life. When Kya and Chase reach the motel in Asheville, Kya agrees to have sex with Chase. In his excitement, Chase "seemed to bypass her needs and push his way." Though Kya does not enjoy the experience, she does not know enough about sexuality to improve it.
Over the next few weeks, Kya tries to attend Chase's family Christmas events, but Chase refuses to take her, claiming she "wouldn't know anybody" and doesn't "have the right clothes." When Chase does not return several days after promised, Kya waits for him. While she is waiting, Tate appears after several long years to apologize. Kya reacts violently, throwing rocks at him and accusing him of being a "CHICKEN SHIT ASSHOLE" for abandoning her without any explanation. Tate apologizes and warns Kya against Chase and his philandering ways.
Though Kya mistrusts Tate, she allows him to view her wildlife specimens inside her shack. When Tate sees the quality and scope of Kya's collection, he offers to submit her drawings and research to a publisher. Though reluctant to forgive Tate for his abandonment, Kya agrees.
Later, when Kya goes into town to buy ingredients to bake a cake for Chase's birthday, she runs into Chase and his friends. Chase awkwardly acknowledges Kya but fails to explain why he has his arm around another woman. Kya picks up a newspaper, intrigued by a story about a research lab opening in the marsh. While perusing the paper, Kya encounters Chase's engagement announcement to Pearl Stone, his childhood friend. Enraged and hurt, Kya impulsively sails to dangerous open waters, mourning the loss of human connection and the hope of not being abandoned.
Using the genealogy in her family Bible, Kya gets an official deed for her property. Then, she invites Tate to her house to pick up a copy of her published book. Before leaving, Tate encourages Kya to "do some exploring" with him instead of hiding from him "like a spotted fawn."
In the winter of 1968, Jodie returns to the marsh. Kya recognizes him by the distinctive scar marring his face. She recalls how Jodie got the scar defending his mother from their father on Easter, when Pa accused his wife of "whoring” to get the money necessary for Kya's Easter dress. Jodie explains how he joined the army, serving two terms in Vietnam, before going to Georgia Tech to study engineering. Though wracked by guilt for leaving Kya with their father, Jodie came to find her as soon as he saw her book in a shop. Jodie also delivers the news that their mother died two years prior.
Jodie shows Kya the paintings their mother made while in isolation, all of which were of her children. She even painted Kya and Tate, who Kya is surprised to learn was friends with Jodie when they were younger. Jodie then tells Kya stories about their family, helping her piece together her past. Jodie gives Kya his address and encourages her to get back together with Tate.
Patti Love, Chase's mother, visits the detectives. She explains that Chase had a shell necklace, which he wore the night he died. However, the necklace was gone when Patti Love went to collect Chase's personal effects from the coroner. Patti Love confirms that Chase dated Kya, though the Andrews family denied the rumors out of embarrassment.
With Patti Love's information, Joe Purdue and Ed Jackson decide to check the tower for the necklace and then question Kya. In addition to her "jilted woman" motive, Kya becomes the primary suspect because "marsh folks know how to cover prints." However, the detectives cannot interview Kya because, though they visit her house multiple times, she is always gone or hiding.
In the Dog-Gone Pub, the detectives are approached by Hal Miller, a fisherman who explains that he saw Kya "motoring just outta the bay" early in the morning the night Chase died. He claims she was "headed right toward the fire tower." With that information, they request a warrant to search Kya's home for fabrics that match those found on Chase's clothes.
Analysis
Kya pursues Chase because she desires both sexual and emotional connection. While waiting for Chase, she lies by the sea, waiting for it to touch her. This scene, representing her longing, uses sexual innuendo, comparing the touch of the ocean to sexual ecstasy. Again, Kya processes her emotions and desires by seeking contact with nature and wildness. Additionally, she expresses her desires using poetic language, which hints at Kya's dual identity: the text later reveals she publishes poetry under the name Amanda Hamilton.
On her picnic date with Chase, Kya explains the different shell species in proper, academic terms. At this point in the text, Kya rarely uses the vernacular language typical throughout the text. This change in her spoken language indicates that Kya has spent her solitude reading and researching and is now an educated person. However, when talking to people who helped her during childhood, such as Jumpin' and Jodie, Kya sometimes reverts to the speech patterns of her youth. This intentional use of colloquial language demonstrates the duality of Kya's character: she is both an astute academic and the misfit "Marsh Girl."
Kya compares her disappointing date with Chase to the mating rituals of birds she observes. Kya sees the world through the lens of the marsh and evaluates her human relationships using what she learns from observing animals. To Kya, Chase's romantic dates and displays of wealth are nothing more than animalistic posturing. For example, Chase's "brightly colored boat" appeared to Kya "like vivid feathers of a male bird's breeding plumage." She hesitates to sleep with Chase, as "images of does or turkey hens alone with their demanding young, the males long gone to other females, weighed solid in her mind." In her wildlife studies, Kya is familiar with unfaithful males, and applies these observations to her own romantic and sexual relationships.
Kya's mother suffered a nervous breakdown from years of abuse. Years later, after recovering from the trauma inflicted by her husband, Ma remembered she had abandoned her children and wrote to Pa, asking to take the children back. Pa replied that if she came back, he would beat the children "unrecognizable." In response to this information, Kya invokes her research into evolutionary biology, which taught her that "ruthless-seeming behaviors," like abandoning one's children, "ensured the survival of early man in whatever swamp he was in at the time." By framing her personal hurts as the product of natural processes, Kya finally forgives her mother and understands her mother's choices as "inventive ways to endure against all odds."
Jodie also explains to Kya that Ma "allowed herself no life, no pleasure" and "died much as she had lived. In darkness, in silence." Despite the lingering sting of her mother's abandonment, this information allows Kya to connect with her mother deeply, as Ma's abandonment sentenced both mother and daughter to lives of isolation.
In Kya and Chase's relationship, Kya represents the marsh and Chase represents the town. Kya mistrusts Chase because, like most people in Barkley Cove, he "knew the marsh as a thing to be used." Chase desires Kya for the novelty of being sexually intimate with a mysterious woman, just as the residents of Barkley Cove only visit the marsh to drain its resources or briefly experinece its danger and wildness. Though Kya suspects Chase's true motives and worries she is "a curiosity to be turned over in his hands, then tossed back on the sand," she still pursues a relationship with him, just as she attempted to become acquainted with the townsfolk on several occasions.
In their conversations, Kya and Chase demonstrate their incompatibility. For example, Kya considers explaining the concept of spacetime to Chase but holds back, as she knows he will not appreciate or understand this scientific theory. In the same moment, Chase tells Kya he will coach the high school football team. The contrast between Kya's existential thoughts and Chase's mundane news demonstrates the divide and intellectual incompatibility between the two, further demonstrating that their relationship is transactional. Like Barkley Cove entrepreneurs draining the marsh, Chase wants to "tame" Kya's wild beauty. For her part, Kya wants Chase to ease her loneliness. In town, Chase compares Kya's sexuality to that of a trapped wild animal, claiming she is "wild as a she-fox in a snare. Just what you'd expect from a marsh minx." In this callous comment, Chase inadvertently reveals that his presence and attempts to "civilize" Kya restrict her freedom and sense of identity: Chase's love is like a snare.
When Kya leaves the marsh with Chase for the first time, she sees "fields of paraplegic snags" that "stood in felled forests" and "poles, strung with wires" that "trudged toward the horizon." By describing the urban landscape in harsh, violent terms, the text establishes Kya's intense discomfort and distress in developed environments and questions the morality of destroying nature to build. The text extends its use of imagery to convey the danger of "civilization" when Chase and Kya enter the motel room, which "seemed clean enough but reeked of Pine-Sol and was furnished in America cheap." By sleeping with Kya for the first time in a clinical room, Chase demonstrates how little he understands Kya and her nature.
The text explores the theme of masculinity by comparing "men's" and "women's" spaces. The Dog-Gone Bar, where the detectives gather to gossip about Kya, is an exclusive space for men. The text describes the bar using stereotypically "masculine" imagery, such as the "flashing beer signs" that gave off "an amber glow, like campfires licking whiskered faces." In the bar, the men exchange information and judgments that ultimately result in Kya's arrest.
Fed up with waiting for Chase, Kya heads to the log cabin to peruse textbooks and scientific periodicals from the Sea Oaks library. In one periodical, she learns how weaker animal males "trick" females into mating with them. Kya sees the parallels in her own life, and her mother's warning that "unworthy boys make a lot of noise." Through this analysis, Kya begins to understand how Chase's posturing and romance are no different from primal mating rituals.
Kya gives Jumpin' a copy of her book to thank him and Mabel for their help over the years. With growing racial tensions in the area, Kya and Jumpin' cannot hug or show affection, but Jumpin' displays Kya's book in his shop window "as a father would have." The text uses this image to compare Jumpin' and Kya's biological father. Though Kya often understands human relationships as little more than animal desires to survive and reproduce, her relationship with Jumpin' complicates this worldview. Jumpin' and Mabel have no biological incentive to help Kya; and, because of racism in Barkley Cove, Jumpin' and Mabel endanger themselves by supporting Kya. Their financial circumstances are also precarious, meaning that providing for Kya is a significant sacrifice. Still, Mabel and Jumpin' support Kya out of selfless love, unlike her family and romantic partners and unlike the animals Kya observes.
