Lapvona

Content Warning: This section includes references of child abuse, incest, domestic violence, sexual assault, suicide, cannibalism, and implied pedophilia.

Part 1 Summary: “Spring”

The village of Lapvona has just been raided by bandits, who killed five adults and two children and stole a variety of goods. Only the lambs are untouched, tended by a man named Jude who lives several miles from the village center. One bandit is caught and put in the pillory.

Marek, a 13-year-old boy born with a twisted spine, goes to help dig a trench to bury the dead, but the bodies frighten him and he’s unable to participate. While he is walking home, he comes across the pilloried bandit and stops to kiss his forehead. He resolves not to tell his father, Jude, since he feels that he wouldn’t understand; “Jude didn’t understand forgiveness. He was incapable of forgiveness because he was so addled by his own grief and grudges” (8). Jude’s grief stems from having lost his parents at a young age, when (he believes) they drowned in the nearby lake during an unexpected storm. Back at home, Jude hits Marek. Jude barely raised Marek, leaving him instead to the care of the village wet nurse,