"Torquelike, fear encircled her with its dull, constant pressure. On their seventeeth day in the forest, Catherwood could no longer believe that Gabriel would find them, or that she would discover herself on the doorstep of home. For six days she had wandered in circles, trying to cross the path. Once she had dreamed someone had fired a fowling piece in the woods, but she had waked to nothing but the whistles of birds.
Elisabeth's fingers fluttered on her eyelids. 'Ma,' she said. 'way up.' When Cath opened her eyes there was Elisabeth and the big wilderness of America."
Imagine finding yourself in 17th century America alone in the vast wilderness...
Catherwood: A Novel, by Marly Youmans