The Stillwater Girls

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness, child death, and child abuse.

“And it’s always then that I wake up in a cold sweat, a gaping hollowness in my chest until I realize it wasn’t real.

There’s no baby. There never was.”

The diction in Nic’s vivid image of the “gaping hollowness” she feels after the dream and the short, anaphoric sentences that follow emphasize the desperate emotion she feels after the dream about the empty stroller. Although Nic does not yet realize it, this recurring dream depicts a repressed image from her past, which makes her comment “There’s no baby. There never was” unintentionally ironic.

“‘The world’s an evil place, my darlings,’ she would say as she brushed the hair off our foreheads and kissed our chubby, soap-scented cheeks at night. ‘You’re safe here. With me.’”

Wren’s memories of Maggie foreshadow her eventual discovery of Maggie’s manipulation. The juxtaposition of Maggie’s words about evil and promises of protection with the sweet images of chubby-cheeked, freshly washed children and the diction “darlings” frames Maggie warm and nurturing nature as manipulative, underscoring the novel’s thematic interest in The Distinction Between Manipulation and Protection.

“I don’t know who he is or what he wants, but I won’t hide like a coward.”

Despite the terror of outsiders that Mama has instilled in Wren, she displays real courage in this moment, underscoring her Resilience in the Face of Shifting Personal Identity. When Wren first realizes that a man has come near the cabin, she decides to track him, evidencing her bravery, determination, and the sense of responsibility she feels for both her own and Sage’s safety, even though Sage is only a year younger than Wren.