Playing Beatie Bow: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

The Tallisker-Bows are taken in by the butcher and his wife. Abigail is fussed over and acclaimed for her bravery in saving everyone from the fire. The constables bring back Mr. Bow, and tell Granny that though they won’t write him up this time, his spells and violent episodes need to stop or he will soon end up in the madhouse.

Granny tells Abigail that she has at last done what she was sent to do—she saved Dovey for Judah, and now the Gift has double the chance of survival. Dovey begs Abigail to stay even though her task is done, but Abigail says she must return home. Dovey retrieves the green dress from the bride chest, and Abigail finds that it now looks strange and foreign to her. Nevertheless, she puts the dress on, and finds that it fits her more tightly—her figure is at last coming in.

Granny tells Abigail that it must be Beatie alone who accompanies her back to the place where she first entered the past, and that it must be nearly dark, as it was on the night she first came. Abigail says her painful goodbyes to Dovey and Judah—Gibbie is asleep and Mr. Bow is in a kind of trance. Last of all, Abigail bids Granny farewell, and tells her that she wishes Granny were her real grandmother. Beatie angrily says it’s time to go, and the two set off for the lane.

Abigail tells Beatie there’s no reason for Beatie to still be angry at her, but Beatie insists that Abigail should not have kissed Judah. Abigail vindictively tells Beatie that she is going to burn the green dress as soon as she gets home so that she can never return, and the two grumpily and silently walk down the street.

At the end of the lane, Abigail tells Beatie that she should go to her teacher and ask to be tutored privately. Beatie replies that her father would not like for her to approach a man. Abigail tells her not to worry about what her father thinks, and instead look out for herself.

Abigail asks Beatie to stop hating her—Judah doesn’t love her after all, and Abigail did end up saving Dovey for him. Beatie says Abigail was only doing what she was “sent for.” Abigail, incensed, tells Beatie that she knows nothing about love, and will have to experience it to understand how powerful it is. She is then shocked to find that she is repeating the same words her mother once said to her—words she’d once thought were so foolish.

Beatie does not answer Abigail, and so Abigail bids her a glum goodbye before continuing down the stairs to the lower part of the lane. She looks back over her shoulder and sees Beatie growing transparent. She thinks she can see Beatie waving her goodbye, but by the time she calls out Beatie’s name, it is too late—she is back in her own time.

Abigail sees the Mitchell building, and hears the bells of the Town Hall clock. She wonders if it could be possible that no time at all has passed—it is, after all, still winter, as it was when she first passed into 1873. Abigail nervously approaches her apartment building, afraid that in fact a full year has passed, and her mother will have moved on without her. As she enters the lobby, she realizes that she is still wearing Dovey’s wool stockings and Granny’s shoes. The key to her own apartment is pinned inside her green dress, and she rushes inside, grateful for the sounds of the noisy Crown family next door.

Abigail picks up a nearby newspaper and is relieved to see that the date is the 10th of May—the same day she left. So much has passed, she thinks, between just two clock strikes. Abigail longs to fall into the recliner and cry and rest for days—she will never see Judah again—but knows that she has little time before her mother will arrive home. Abigail runs to her bedroom and removes her old-timey clothes, stuffing them in a drawer. She catches sight of herself in the mirror and realizes how different she looks—most noticeably of all, her hair has grown nearly to her waist. She uses a pair of scissors to hack it off to her shoulders, and then jumps in the shower to wash herself.

When Abigail gets out of the bath, her mother is home. Despite the fact that they have “just” had a fight, Abigail cannot help grinning at her beloved mother. Her mother asks what she is smiling about, and how she could have run away without a word. Abigail apologizes for having been childish. Kathy then does a double-take, noticing that Abigail looks older. Kathy chides herself for not having paid enough attention to Abigail lately, and apologizes for going about in a fog.

Abigail and Kathy apologize to each other, and resolve to say not another word about Weyland that night. Abigail tries not to think of Judah, but as the night goes on, she has a hard time keeping him—and her jealous feelings toward Dovey—out of her head. She wonders if she has become just like all her lovesick classmates, but eventually decides that she is different than the others—Judah filled the empty place inside of her. Abigail resolves to try and forget as much as she can about everyone and everything in 1873,and puts herself to sleep.

In her dreams, Abigail has horrible visions of Samuel Bow chained up in an asylum. She sees Beatie, older and studious, bent over a leather-bound book. Beatie is dressed in black mourning clothes, and Abigail wonders whether Granny or Gibbie has died. The dream shifts again, and Abigail is on a ship—she sees Judah, the same age he was when she left 1873, whittling a small wooden figure of Abigail herself. He throws the figurine overboard, and Abigail wakes up crying and screaming. Her mother is at her side, comforting her—Abigail cannot stop moaning that Judah threw her away.

In the morning, Abigail goes with her mother to work at Magpies, the vintage shop. As Kathy sets to work cleaning up a set of Victorian portraits, she marvels at how colorful their clothing was. Abigail corrects her, stating that most people wore drab woolen things and striped stockings.

Abigail tells her mother that she is going to take a walk around the Rocks. Before she goes, she hugs her mother and tells her that they can go to Norway with Weyland—she apologizes for making such a fuss. Kathy is stunned, but visibly excited.

Abigail heads up Argyle Street toward the Rocks, feeling as if she is going home. The street is bright and deserted. She cannot believe that it was only last night that she saw the street teeming with “ragged, grubby, and vital” life and people. Abigail is amazed and terrified that all trace of the Bows and Talliskers has vanished—she feels as if time is a “vast black hole” that swallows up all human joy and suffering. Abigail realizes, sickeningly, that the same thing will happen to herself and her own parents.

Abigail feels as if the empty place inside her is empty once again—she cannot bear to be in the Rocks anymore, so she heads home. Once back in the building, she fetches her cut-off hair and her green dress, and takes the elevator down to the incinerator, where she burns everything. At the last minute, she pulls the crochet yoke out of the flames. She takes it upstairs, where she folds it up and places it in the drawer with Dovey’s stockings and Granny’s shoes.