Chapter Seventeen: Summary, Analysis, and Key Themes

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens with Mattie checking on Jen, who remains deeply unconscious and unresponsive even when Mattie touches her forehead or shakes her shoulder. Mattie recognizes that Jen's condition is more serious than the trap wound alone, but she has no medical knowledge to help. She changes out of her skirts into trousers and a heavy sweater so she can move more freely.

Her hair, which has come loose from its braid, becomes an obstacle. Mattie recalls that William always brushed her waist-length hair by the fire, calling her his little Rapunzel, his princess in a tower. She feels a sudden revulsion at the memory, realizing that William kept her hair long because he wanted her as his doll, to play with or break at his whim. She takes a sharp knife from her worktable and saws through the braid close to her neck. The cut reveals a clotted wound on her head where William struck her with a shovel. She briefly thinks that William will be angry, then firmly rejects that thought—William doesn't matter anymore. When C.P. returns, he notices the change and approves. Mattie feels like an animal shedding its winter coat, less like Mattie and more like Samantha.

C.P. shows her a set of keys he found in the snow, which must have fallen from William's pocket during the chase. One key is for a vehicle, suggesting William has a truck, jeep, or ATV hidden somewhere within walking distance. Mattie takes the keys and opens William's locked trunk in the bedroom, something she was never allowed to do. Inside, she finds packets of brown substance that C.P. identifies as heroin, along with stacks of wrapped bills and a pile of newspaper clippings. C.P. warns her to wear mittens so her fingerprints don't end up on the packets, in case William tries to implicate her as an accomplice.

The clippings reveal the truth about Mattie's past. The first shows a picture of a little girl with light hair and dark eyes—Mattie herself—under the headline "TRAGEDY—8-year-old girl missing after mother found brutally murdered." The second clipping says "MISSING—police seek information." The third, headlined "MURDER AND KIDNAPPING IN A SMALL TOWN," includes a candid photo of a woman in a checked shirt: Mattie's mother. Mattie strokes the picture, saying she forgot her mother's face, and folds the clippings to keep in her pocket. C.P. notes that William kept cuttings of his own crime.

Mattie hesitates to take the money because it feels dirty, earned from ruining lives, but she reasons that William ruined her life too and takes two stacks of bills. She ties the keys around her neck with wool and tucks them inside her sweater. C.P. retrieves William's haversack from the storehouse, and they load Jen onto the sled, strapping her in on her side in a fetal position because she is too tall for the platform. C.P. checks Jen's pulse and confirms she is still alive.

As they leave, Mattie feels something huge swelling in her chest—she is really leaving, never to live in the cabin again. She resists the urge to look back, telling herself there is nothing there worth remembering. They follow the deer path toward the stream, and Mattie listens for winter birds, knowing that their silence signals the creature's presence.

They come upon the trap, which has been reset. Nearby lies a dead squirrel with only a graze on its flank. Mattie remembers a small brown bottle with a skull and crossbones among William's purchases and concludes that William poisoned the trap, likely to catch the creature. This explains Jen's unconsciousness—the poison may be damaging her brain or organs. C.P. is furious, calling William a garbage person, and Mattie joins in the laughter that follows, surprised by the sound of her own giggle.

Then the woods go silent. Mattie knows the creature is there. C.P. realizes he left the rifle in the cabin. A branch cracks above them, and the creature snatches Jen from the sled, slicing the straps and leaving only an empty sled and a torn blanket. C.P. screams Jen's name, but Mattie pulls him along, urging him to run. They cross the stream to the other bank, where the creature cannot sneak up on them.

C.P. is distraught, questioning why the creature took Jen and Griffin when they were unconscious and no threat. Mattie offers an explanation based on animal behavior: predators target the sick and weak in a herd to avoid injury. The creature removed them one at a time because they couldn't fight back. C.P. confesses he never really believed in cryptids and just wanted to hang out with his friends, who are now gone.

C.P. insists on retrieving Griffin's camera and his own pack from the boulders, arguing that the camera holds evidence and that Griffin shouldn't have died for nothing. Mattie objects, wanting to stay by the stream, but she realizes this is about honoring his friend and making sense of something senseless. She follows him. They find the boulders and C.P. transfers the camera and a notebook from Griffin's pack to his own. As he smiles at her, a rifle shot rings out and C.P. falls to the ground.

Key Events

Mattie cuts off her long hair as an act of defiance against William's control.
C.P. finds William's keys in the snow, including a vehicle key.
Mattie opens William's locked trunk and discovers heroin, cash, and newspaper clippings.
The clippings reveal that Mattie was kidnapped at age eight after her mother was brutally murdered.
Mattie takes money and the keys, tying them around her neck, and they leave the cabin with Jen on a sled.
They discover a reset, poisoned trap that likely caused Jen's unconsciousness.
The creature attacks, snatching Jen from the sled; Mattie and C.P. flee to the stream.
Mattie theorizes that the creature targets the weak and unconscious because predators avoid injury.
C.P. insists on retrieving Griffin's camera and pack from the boulders.
A rifle shot fires and C.P. falls.

Character Development

Mattie undergoes her most significant transformation in this chapter. Cutting her hair is a physical act of reclaiming her identity—she feels "less like Mattie and more like Samantha," suggesting she is shedding the person William made her into. Learning the truth about her kidnapping and her mother's murder gives her a past she had lost. She takes practical control by keeping the keys and money, and she resists looking back at the cabin, a deliberate choice to move forward. Her laughter with C.P. marks a rare moment of lightness, showing she can still access joy.

C.P. reveals his grief and loyalty. His insistence on retrieving Griffin's camera is not about the object but about honoring his friend and finding meaning in senseless loss. He also shows vulnerability, admitting he never truly believed in the creature and just wanted to be with his friends. His anger at William—calling him a "garbage person"—channels his helplessness into righteous fury.

Jen remains unconscious throughout, a passive figure whose fate is decided by others. Her condition drives the urgency of the escape and becomes the catalyst for the creature's attack.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Hair-cutting as liberation: Mattie's shorn hair symbolizes her rejection of William's possession of her body and identity. The act is immediate, physical, and irreversible.
Reclaiming identity: The newspaper clippings restore Mattie's lost history, giving her a face for her mother and a name for her own tragedy. She moves from being William's "Rapunzel" to being a person with a past.
Predator targeting the weak: Mattie's animal-behavior theory reframes the creature's attacks as strategic rather than random, mirroring how William preyed on her vulnerability.
Morally tainted money: Mattie's hesitation to take the cash reflects her growing moral awareness; she takes it anyway, acknowledging that principles won't feed her.
Not looking back: Mattie's refusal to look at the cabin is a deliberate act of forward movement, a rejection of the past's pull.
Honoring the dead: C.P.'s insistence on retrieving Griffin's camera shows how objects can carry meaning and memory for the living.
The stream as escape route: The stream represents a path to safety and civilization, a landmark that offers both direction and protection from the creature.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter is the turning point of the novel. Mattie's discovery of the clippings transforms her from a victim who has forgotten her past into a survivor who knows the truth of her abduction and her mother's murder. The revelation that William is a drug dealer and kidnapper reframes the entire captivity, showing the scale of his crimes. The creature's attack on Jen demonstrates that no one is safe, and Mattie's theory about its hunting pattern gives the monster a logic that makes it more terrifying. The chapter ends on a cliffhanger—C.P. shot and falling—that raises the stakes for the final chapters, leaving readers uncertain who fired the rifle and whether anyone will escape the mountain.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does Mattie cut off her hair, and what does the act represent?

Mattie cuts her hair because William insisted she keep it long, calling her his "Rapunzel" and treating her as a doll to control. The act is a rejection of his possession of her body and identity. She feels lighter, like an animal shedding its winter coat, and describes herself as feeling less like Mattie and more like Samantha—suggesting she is reclaiming a self that existed before William's influence.

2. What does Mattie discover in William's trunk, and how does it change her understanding of her past?

The trunk contains packets of heroin, stacks of cash, and newspaper clippings. The clippings reveal that Mattie was kidnapped at age eight after her mother was brutally murdered, and that police had searched for her as a missing child. This discovery gives Mattie a face for her mother and confirms that William is responsible for both the murder and the kidnapping, transforming her from a woman with no memory of her origins into someone who knows the truth of her own tragedy.

3. Why does Mattie believe the creature took Griffin and Jen, and what does this theory reveal about her thinking?

Mattie reasons that predators target the sick and weak in a herd to avoid injury, so the creature took Griffin and Jen because they were unconscious and posed no threat. This theory reveals Mattie's practical, survival-oriented thinking and her ability to find patterns in terrifying events. It also suggests she understands predation intimately, having lived as William's captive for twelve years.