57 pages • 1 hour read
A. B. PoranekWhere the Dark Stands Still
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Magic of Self-Acceptance
Over the course of the novel, Liska attains the magic of self-acceptance. Although Weles serves as the main antagonist, the novel’s central conflict is the one raging within the protagonist. Liska’s struggle to embrace herself and her magic originates in the religious trauma of her youth in Stodoła: “[S]he learned that God did not approve of magic, and thus did not approve of her” (313). The villagers’ Church-sanctioned prejudice deeply impacts Liska’s self-esteem and behavior. She hides her true potential and wears the mask of “the perfect Orlican girl: docile and pious and helpful, the last person you would suspect of ungodly magic” (140). The years of stifling conformity she endures are rendered meaningless when she kills Tomasz to protect her secret, and she locks away her magic in an act of complete self-rejection. The other villagers cannot prove that she is responsible for Tomasz’s death, but they think she is “as wicked as the dark magic harbored in the spirit-wood” (2). This emphasizes Poranek’s point that society’s tolerance is often damaging and conditional and that true, lasting acceptance must come from within.
Although Liska originally enters the Driada to give up her magic, the transformative experiences and relationships she builds in the spirit-wood allow her to achieve self-acceptance. The protagonist’s rejection of her magic catalyzes the plot and brings her into the Leszy’s life. She seeks the fern flower so that she can wish, “Let my magic be gone” (16), and she cannot find self-acceptance if she clings to this desire and denies an essential part of herself. Gradually, the Leszy’s support, Kazimiera’s counsel, and events like the battle at Wałkowo offer Liska a new perspective of magic that defies the religious dogma she was taught her entire life. The theme reaches its turning point when Liska faces her traumatic memories of Tomasz’s death and Marysieńka’s rejection and thus unlocks the magic that she rejected because it was “the one thing she blames for her pain” (207). The “[r]elief” and “unexpected spark of pride” she feels when she uses a spell to restore the rowanberry after confronting her trauma underlines her realization that her magic has the power to preserve life, not just take it (208). At the end of the novel, the protagonist proudly embraces her unique identity as “a czarownik with butterflies in her chest and a forest in her veins” by becoming the spirit-wood’s warden (349). Liska’s growth offers an empowering example of the magic of self-acceptance.
The Quest for Belonging and Redemption
Liska and the Leszy’s quests for belonging and redemption define their character arcs and brings them together as a couple. The protagonist goes from seeing belonging as something she must earn by denying parts of herself to realizing that it is something that she can create for herself. After her husband’s death, Dobrawa Radost conditions her daughter to conform to societal expectations so that no one will suspect she has magic. The once imaginative and spirited girl learns to “keep her head down and stay out of trouble” because docility is demanded of the young women in her village (29). Liska panics and kills Tomasz because he threatens to destroy the fragile sense of community that she cultivated in Stodoła, but his death shatters her chances of belonging and instills in her a desperate yearning for redemption. Marysieńka tells her, “People like you don’t belong among people like us” (212), and it’s evident that Liska believes her cousin because she risks her life to wish away the magic that alienates her.
Liska’s time with Eliasz transforms her understanding of belonging and redemption. She applies his counsel that she must “take up a hammer and chisel and carve” out a place for herself by building a found family from spirits and individuals with magic like her (206). Additionally, Liska resolves her need for redemption and forgives herself during her time at the manor. Eliasz helps her to recognize that she was in an unjust, impossible situation: “You spent your life under a growing pressure, Liska. Even the strongest person would crack after so many years” (206). Confronting her trauma helps Liska realize that a moment of desperation does not have to define her forever. At the end of the novel, the protagonist’s decision to return to the manor and become the Driada’s warden of the spirit-wood instead of staying in Stodoła affirms that she has “carved out a place for herself that is fully her own” (349). Although separating from her biological family and her village pains Liska at first, embarking on a quest for belonging allows her to gain a found family and a home where she is loved for her authentic self.
Like Liska, the Leszy hungers for redemption and belonging. The characters’ outsider status and the guilt they both carry draw them together and prompt Liska to realize that “he might understand her better than anyone has before. More than Mama, more than Tata, more even than Marysieńka” (169). This observation is significant because Marysieńka’s rejection devastates Liska and makes her think of herself as a monster. Similarly, Eliasz views himself as a monster in the literal sense due to his transformation into the Leszy and the blood on his hands. Although the Leszy takes more drastic measures in his search for acceptance, his original motivation resembles Liska’s. The narrator describes Eliasz as “[t]he boy who sold his soul for belonging” because he initially summons Weles in the hope of gaining enough power to be recognized by his fellow czarownik (282). However, he succumbs to the old god’s temptations: “Why be their equal, when you could be better?” (273). By grasping at supremacy, Eliasz loses the opportunity to experience true community. The six lives sacrificed to Weles in exchange for the Leszy’s power explain Eliasz’s longing for redemption. Liska’s gratitude for the way that he has used this power to defend humanity moves him like “absolution to a man condemned” (144), but he must still atone for his actions. Ultimately, Eliasz finds redemption and becomes “truly free” both from Weles and his guilt by killing himself to banish the old god: “[I]t is only right that I was the last sacrifice” (339). Liska and the Leszy’s quest for redemption illustrates the lengths people will go to in order to satisfy the human need for belonging.
The Enduring Relevance of Myths and Folktales
Poranek celebrates the enduring relevance of myths through the novel’s genre, the folktales’ significance to the protagonist, and the story’s overall meaning. Many of the characters who populate this fairy tale retelling are mythical figures drawn from Slavic folklore, including Eliasz the Leszy, Maksio the rusałka, and Jaga the skrzat. In addition, folktales help the human characters live with their environment, which includes the supernatural. For example, hearth-spirits like Jaga are helpful and “friendly to the humans who shelter them” if they are treated with respect and given “offerings of bread and salt” (3). Similarly, folktales instruct the villagers to leave “a tithe: meat or bread or coin” for the Leszy and to stay on the path to navigate the forest safely (7). Folktales give the people of Liska’s village rules to live by and help them make sense of their often-dangerous world.
Myths carry particular importance to the novel’s protagonist. Liska’s extensive knowledge of folklore comes from her father, and many of her happy childhood memories involve listening to these tales and acting them out with her cousin. In Chapter 6, she muses, “If only we could go back to that time [...] when we were young and full of stories” (51). Even after her father’s death and her estrangement from Marysieńka, stories bring Liska comfort because they connect her to joyful memories. When the novel begins, the protagonist is in a state of utter desperation. Tales of the fern flower set the plot into motion by giving her hope of redemption and a path forward. The hope and comfort that folktales offer Liska attest to humanity’s enduring need for stories.
Folktales and myths also contribute to the novel’s overall message of healing and acceptance. The spread of Christianity in Orlica leads to prejudice against individuals with magic, and Liska has no frame of reference for her powers beyond the suspicion and trauma of her religious upbringing in Stodoła. Eliasz is centuries old, and his stories reveal that people like him and Liska were not always persecuted: “But before you called us witches, we had another name: czarownik. Our gifts were revered, not reviled” (35). Eliasz and Kazimiera’s tales help Liska unlearn the religious dogma that dismisses pagan myths as mere superstition and labeled magic as evil. At the end of the novel, Liska uses oral storytelling about czarownik and the Driada’s warden to find and shelter others who, like her, were taught to fear their magic. By reclaiming myths and folktales from the past, Liska works toward a brighter, more inclusive future.
