54 pages • 1 hour read
Rebecca RossA River Enchanted
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 6-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “A Song for Water”
Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary
Sidra visits Una, the blacksmith who forges enchanted blades, bringing her a tonic to mitigate the negative effects of using magic. The two discuss their children, and whether the spirits are behind the missing girls. Sidra hears the wind whisper as she leaves the forge.
Jack waits for Adaira in the music turret of the castle. He peruses the music and mourns the quiet left by the death of Lorna. He then sees a sealed letter from the Breccans on the table and wonders why the Breccans would write to Adaira. After an hour of waiting for Adaira, he decides he’s been stood up, and goes into the street, where one of the city folks tells him another girl has gone missing; she doesn’t know who. Jack runs home in a panic to find Frae safe but shaken by the news that another girl is gone. He plays her a song on his harp to soothe her, then continues to play for the entire afternoon while Frae and Mirin weave. He then begins to study the Song of the Tides, Lorna’s song that could summon the spirits.
Catriona Mitchell, age five, is the latest missing girl who haunts Torin. He follows her trail and finds a strange crimson flower. He brings the flower home to Sidra, who can’t identify it but promises to research it. Torin returns to his search, stopping to look at his father Graeme’s croft. He hasn’t visited in a few years, as their relationship has been strained since his father chastised him for handfasting with Donella in secret. When Donella died, Torin took the crying baby Maisie to Graeme for help, who told him to find a new wife, which enraged Torin. Graeme later sent a note explaining how to feed and soothe Maisie, but Torin was still angry, even though later he did marry Sidra.
Torin visits Graeme and asks for advice about the missing girls. Graeme gives Torin half of a book of stories about the spirits, which used to belong to Joan Tamerlaine; the other half of the book is with the Breccans. Torin takes it home to study.
That night, Jack hears the shutters rattle and panics, but it is simply a note from Adaira, apologizing for missing their meeting and offering to visit him at home the next night. As Jack sleeps, he dreams of singing and drowning.
Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary
Jack teaches Frae how to use his slingshot, and Adaira arrives for her visit. Mirin makes a large dinner for the group with Frae’s help, while Adaira and Jack finalize their plan. They also reminisce about the past and why Lorna and Alastair chose to send Jack to the mainland to learn music and become a bard. Adaira tells him it’s because her mother saw a spark in him and that he wasn’t sent away because they didn’t want him around, but because they wanted him to come back and bring the music with him, taking over for Lorna as the Bard of the East. Adaira asks him to stay, and Jack agrees to think about it. He asks her about the Breccan letter he saw, and she tells him that she wants to set up trade with the Breccans and exchange their food for enchanted objects to stop people like Mirin from getting sick from using magic.
The group eats dinner, and Adaira tells Frae about the pranks that Jack used to play on her. Then Adaira returns to the castle, promising to meet Jack at midnight at Kelpie Rock.
Sidra reads stories to Maisie from the half-book Graeme gave them. One story is about Oreanna, a stealthy earth spirit who grew crimson flowers in places she was not supposed to and used the flowers to eavesdrop on the other spirits. Even after being warned by Lady Whin to stick to her territory, Oreanna grew flowers on Tilting Thom, a mountain governed by the wind spirits, who were enraged she stole their secrets. At Lady Whin’s second warning, Oreanna called her weak, which was overheard by Earie Stone, the oldest of the folk. As punishment for her pride, she could only grow her flowers in inhospitable lands, and she would have to prick her finger and bleed her golden blood for flowers to bloom. In addition, when the mortals ate the petals of her flowers, they would know her secrets. At the end of the story, Sidra thinks of the crimson flower Torin found and what would happen if she ate a petal.
Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary
Adaira and Jack meet at Kelpie Rock to summon the spirits. Jack grounds himself in his positive memories of Cadence and begins to play Lorna’s song. As he plays, the water spirits manifest and listen appreciatively to the music. All of them adore him, except for the woman-like spirit that Jack saw in the water the night he crossed back over to Cadence, whom he now identifies as Lady Ream of the Sea. When the song ends, Lady Ream asks Adaira why they’ve been summoned. Adaira tells her about the missing girls and asks the water spirits if they know anything. Lady Ream tells her that their mouths have been sealed from speaking the truth, so even if they knew something, they could not tell her. Lady Ream also advises her to seek information from those higher up and warns her about “blood in the water” (140), which confuses Jack and Adaira. The spirits leave, and the tide drags Jack and Adaira into the water too. They climb back onto the rock and discuss a new plan to summon the spirits of the earth. Jack feels the adverse effects of using magic with his music, but he hides this from Adaira. Trapped on the rock by the tides, Jack wants to wait until dawn to return home, but Adaira jumps into the water to swim despite the darkness. Feigning drowning, she convinces Jack to join her. They swim back, playing in the water, and Jack begins to contemplate staying for perhaps a full year.
Part 1, Chapter 9 Summary
Sidra dreams that she and Maisie are on a beach before Maisie turns into a fish. Donella appears and grabs Sidra’s arm, telling her to wake up and that “he” is coming for Maisie. She gives Sidra instructions on where to find a dirk to defend them. Sidra finds the enchanted dirk and grabs Maisie, waking her and telling her that they must go to Graeme’s croft. In the yard, there’s a shadow in the shape of a man. Sidra tells Maisie to run to Graeme’s croft and not look back. Sidra asks the shadow what it wants, and it replies that it wants Maisie. She and the shadow fight, and though she manages to stab the shadow in the back, it overpowers her, taking Maisie before knocking Sidra unconscious. When Sidra awakens, Graeme is there, but the shadow and Maisie are gone. She tells Graeme what happened, but he wants to tend to her wounds before searching for Maisie because he sees blood on her chemise. She realizes that it is the blood from the spirit, but it is red, not gold. She and Graeme then realize that it is a man who is stealing the girls, not a spirit. Sidra, broken-hearted at having failed to protect Maisie, calls for Torin.
Part 1, Chapters 6-9 Analysis
The divide between Breccans and Tamerlaines becomes more complex and nuanced when Jack finds the letter from the Breccans to Adaira. The narrator offers a glimpse into Jack’s internal dialogue: “Jack came to a stop […], disconcerted when he remembered the legend of Joan Tamerlaine, dying entwined with Fingal Breccan. Did the Breccans dream of peace again after so many years of strife?” (97). The use of the word “entwined” to describe Joan and Fingal’s final moments is a twist from Jack’s original telling of the story, further illustrating The Power of Music and Stories in Shaping Reality. The reality of the past depends on who tells the story, and when Jack imagines the Breccans’ perspective, the imagery of the death of Joan and Fingal becomes softer and more romantic, the knives removed from the story entirely.
The Importance of Unity in Preserving Cultural Heritage and the Natural Environment emerges as a theme in the second half of Part 1. When Jack thinks about communication with the Breccans, it is through the lens of a “united isle,” something he can “hardly fathom.” The isle of Cadence has been divided for nearly as long as humans have inhabited it, so unity is difficult to imagine. However, the isle’s inhabitants suffer from these divisions. As a result of the curse, the Tamerlaines become ill when they use magic, and the Breccans starve in the winter because their land can’t support crops. The natural environment is thus cursed as well by the clans’ feud. If the isle were unified, not only would the natural environment would improve, but both groups could also better understand their shared cultural heritage, as the divided book of stories about the spirits illustrates. Graeme has only half of the book, while the other half is in the west with the Breccans. If the two clans could reconcile, they could reunite the halves of the book and better understand the spirits and their role in Cadence.
Music becomes connected to the theme of The Dynamics of Homecoming and Belonging in Community. The narrator says of Jack, “he had always desired to prove himself worthy of the Tamerlaines. To be wanted, to feel as if he belonged. Music had once given that to him. A home, a purpose” (101). On the mainland, Jack made a home for himself in the study of music, even though he yearned to return to the home that he felt had rejected him, filling him with insecurity about his place in the world. He tells Adaira that he’s “more mainlander than islander these days” (119), which prompts her to ask, “Did it ever cross your mind that we were waiting for you to return, Jack? Did you ever think of us, and that maybe we longed for you to come back and fill the hall with music again?” (119). Adaira offers another perspective on Jack’s relationship to his community. While Jack views learning and teaching music at the university as his purpose, Adaira places value on the communal aspect of Jack’s talent, of the gift he can share with the clan. Though Jack doubts it, Adaira and her parents view him as an essential part of the community and only sent him away to become a bard and return.
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