77 pages • 2 hours read
Rebecca RoanhorseTrail of Lightning
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 11-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary
When the two reach Maggie’s trailer, Maggie recognizes a face in her window. To her disappointment, it is not Neizghání. She has Kai wait in the car, telling him to come inside if she is not back out in 15 minutes. Maggie does not want to spend too much time with her visitor, Ma’ii, also known as Coyote. Then Maggie leaps into the trailer.
Chapter 12 Summary
Maggie remembers how she first met Coyote—when she was 14, before the Big Water, he came to her in a dream. Wearing an elaborate suit, Coyote told horror stories to young Maggie, whom he calls Magdalena, before announcing that they were friends. Coyote also warned Maggie to prepare for coming monsters. Back in her trailer, Maggie greets her dangerous friend. He asks Maggie about the handsome man in her truck before teasing her about Neizghání, which only angers her. When Maggie demands to know why Coyote is visiting her, he says he wants her help retrieving something. He also gives her a gift of naayéé’ ats’os (directional hoops), saying that Maggie must fetch him the breath of Níłch’i, the wind who gave life to humanity. In exchange, Coyote promises to give Maggie her heart’s desire, although he teases her about what that might be. He first offers, “I could make the handsome boy in your motor vehicle fall madly in love with you,” then, “Would you like to see Neizghání again? I could arrange it” (96). Maggie rejects Coyote’s offers and tries to strangle him out of rage, but Kai interrupts.
Chapter 13 Summary
Coyote and Kai get to know each other while Maggie relents and goes to fetch more drinks. In the kitchen she can hear the other two getting along, but when Maggie returns, Coyote teases her more about her and Kai being future lovers. Coyote explains to Kai how he and Maggie first met in her dreams at the end of the Fifth World. He also tells Kai, “I have lived many lives in many worlds […]even before Changing Woman made the five-fingered people, and in them all the worlds have come to an end in a great flood […] this last flood, the one you call the Big Water, ended the Fifth World and began the Sixth. It opened the passage for those like myself to return to the world” (101). Now in the Sixth World, the immortal Holy People (Diyin Dine’é, those who are of Bik’e’áyéeii) walk among humans and monsters. Coyote, however, says that even he does not recognize the tsé naayéé’. Maggie leaves the two alone again to make dinner.
Chapter 14 Summary
While she cooks, Maggie thinks about how she used to offend her nalí (grandmother) with her bad homemaking. Her nalí died on Maggie’s 16th birthday. They were watching TV together when the yee naaldlǫǫshii witch and his followers attacked. Maggie lost consciousness, and when she woke up the witch ordered her to mercy-kill her grandmother. Unable to follow through, Maggie watched the witch and his followers butcher her grandmother for meat. Before they got to Maggie, her clan powers woke for the first time, and she killed everyone. When she calmed down, she sobbed at the bloodshed until a large, winged man appeared at her door. He introduced himself as Naayéé’ Neizghání and thanked Maggie for killing the monsters, offering to guide and train her. Monster hunting became her new life, until Neizghání left her.
Chapter 15 Summary
Kai’s laughter brings Maggie out of her flashback. She overhears Coyote telling Kai a story about Neizghání, whom Coyote clearly dislikes. Maggie interrupts them with dinner, after which Coyote leaves. On his way out, he tells Kai, whom he liked, that Kai may call on him. He also tells Maggie that Kai would be a good lover and that Neizghání was never good for her, but Maggie refuses to discuss the subject. Before leaving, he reminds Maggie once again to fetch him the breath of Níłch’i.
Once Coyote is gone, Kai tells Maggie how amazed he was to meet him. Kai and Maggie go off to bed, and Kai jokes about sleeping together. Maggie is initially caught off guard, but Kai offers more seriously. Maggie declines. She says, “I…I have someone. Someone I…” (119). Instead, the two decide to just stay friends.
Chapter 16 Summary
Chapter 16 begins with another of Maggie’s dreams. She hunts and shoots a target, only to realize that her prey was Kai. In the dream, Kai calls Maggie a monster. When Maggie wakes up and sees Kai, she is thoroughly shaken. Even while making coffee, she looks at the scars on her hands and thinks, “trauma, scars. That’s what I know, what I’m good at. Vomiting ugly into the world” (124). Kai tries to address Maggie, calling her Mags, and she lashes out at him suddenly. She threatens Kai with a knife, demanding that he stop using that nickname. Kai seems surprised and afraid but still asks if Maggie is ok. Instead of answering, Maggie runs out the door.
Chapter 17 Summary
Kai comes to Maggie at her truck and asks what just happened. Maggie feels she cannot explain her feelings to him. Kai offers to remain partners, but Maggie says no. Still, Kai says that he knows about Coyote’s quest for Maggie and even recognizes the directional hoops. Maggie accuses Kai’s mom of neglecting to teach him not to snoop, but she regrets saying this when she finds out Kai’s mother died in the Big Water. Kai’s dad never recovered from losing her, and eventually he abandoned teenage Kai. After that, Kai had a bad run-in with the Uriostes, a big family back in the Burque (Albuquerque). Maggie thinks in response, “I know he’s trying to make up for last night, share something about himself that’s close to the bone to rebuild some trust, and I appreciate that. But I don’t intend to return the gesture. What I can do, though, is apologize for this morning” (129). Kai asks Maggie for her Big Water story, but she answers in only the briefest detail. After telling their stories on the road, Maggie sees a group of humans ahead, and the two prepare for bandits. They try to drive straight through the group, but Maggie realizes that they are the Dibáá’ Ashiiké, also known as the Thirsty Boys, a group of mercenaries whose leader, Hastiin, Maggie knows.
Chapters 11-17 Analysis
In this section of the novel, Roanhorse introduces the character of Coyote, who seems to both help and aggravate Maggie. When Coyote first introduces himself to Maggie in a dream, he announces to her, “we are friends” (90). He also appears to help Maggie in some ways. Coyote gives her naayéé’ ats’os, directional hoops that will prove especially useful to Maggie at the end of the novel. He even offers to give Maggie her heart’s desire in exchange for her help on a quest. However, all of Coyote’s offers of goodwill come at the expense of his incessant teasing. When he teases Maggie about her love for Neizghání, she is embarrassed and tries to excuse his behavior. She thinks, “it’s a coyote’s natura to be vicious, and I try not to take it personally. But he makes it very hard not to want to smash his mouth in with my fist” (93). Eventually Coyote’s teasing becomes too much, Maggie’s goodwill runs too thin, and Maggie does try to fight him. As a trickster god, Coyote defies norms in combining such friendly and antagonistic tendencies. However, his introduction to the story does flesh out additional details to the backstory of Roanhorse’s Sixth World, which is a direct extension of Diné creation beliefs. When Roanhorse has Coyote explain the concept of the six worlds and the Holy People to Kai, she also introduces the reader, who may not be as familiar with Diné beliefs, to the stories and culture that define Trail of Lightning.
At another point in this section of the book, Maggie suffers one of many flashbacks. When she cooks in the kitchen, kneading some bread, she thinks that the sounds bring “back memories of my nalí’s kitchen and the daily ritual of making bread” (104-05). Although this domestic scene brings up some positive memories that Maggie has of her grandmother, it also triggers a flashback to a pivotal scene in Maggie’s life—her 16th birthday, the day her grandmother was murdered, Maggie’s clan powers activated, and Maggie met Neizghání. This day marks the point at which Maggie truly enters the Sixth World, becoming part of the fantasy through her supernatural abilities and association with an immortal. However, this memory also adds context to Maggie’s self-doubt and Neizghání’s accusation that her ability to kill makes her monstrous. Instead, the reader here sees that Maggie’s powers come out of an innocent desire to protects herself and her grandmother, even if also to get revenge against the men who would have eaten her.
As a result of this flashback, Maggie soon has a nightmare in which Kai calls her a monster. This dream clearly shows Maggie’s fear that a future partner will dehumanize and betray her in much the same way that Neizghání did. As Maggie is unable to articulate this, even to herself, she takes out her emotional turmoil on Kai, even threatening him with a knife. Although Maggie regrets her actions and Kai reaches out to her by sharing personal stories, Maggie’s emotional development and ability to trust others are still held back by the scars she bears from Neizghání’s abandonment.
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