In Chap­ter 38 titled “Sun­day Jus­tice” from the book set in 1970, Kya, known as the Marsh Girl, faces the start of her mur­der tri­al in Barkley Cove, a town that has his­tor­i­cal­ly been both her refuge and a place of iso­la­tion. Hav­ing spent her life large­ly dis­con­nect­ed from the com­mu­ni­ty and now accused of mur­der, Kya’s pres­ence in the bright, crowd­ed court­room con­trasts sharply with the dim soli­tude of her jail cell and the nat­ur­al marsh­lands she calls home. Her attire of black slacks and a white blouse, along­side the hand­cuffs bind­ing her wrists, high­lights her vul­ner­a­ble state as she enters to face pub­lic scruti­ny and the legal sys­tem.

Tom Mil­ton, a sev­en­ty-one-year-old retired attor­ney who has emerged from his qui­et life to defend Kya pro bono, embod­ies the blend of pater­nal con­cern and pro­fes­sion­al duty. Their rela­tion­ship, hav­ing evolved from ini­tial silence to a mutu­al under­stand­ing, now faces its ulti­mate test. Tom, with his elder­ly wis­dom and keen on pre­sent­ing a poised defense, knows too well the chal­lenge they face in a town eager­ly await­ing a spec­ta­cle. His attempts to soothe Kya’s nerves, using the famil­iar­i­ty of court draw­ings and gen­tle reas­sur­ances, jux­ta­pose the town’s buzzing antic­i­pa­tion and glar­ing prej­u­dices.

The his­to­ry of Barkley Cove, from its found­ing to the courtroom’s recon­struc­tion after a light­ning strike, intro­duces a back­drop rich with tra­di­tion and soci­etal dynam­ics. This set­ting not only frames the tri­al but also mir­rors the com­plex­i­ty of Kya’s life—rooted in nature, yet caught in human judg­ment. The cour­t­house, with details like the cour­t­house cat Sun­day Jus­tice, the archi­tec­tur­al grandeur, and the seg­re­ga­tion of seat­ing, paints a vivid pic­ture of the com­mu­ni­ty’s iden­ti­ty and the bias­es Kya must nav­i­gate.

Judge Sims’ rul­ing against relo­cat­ing the tri­al under­lines the uphill bat­tle Kya and Tom face in seek­ing jus­tice amid deep-root­ed prej­u­dice. The chap­ter lays bare the ten­sion between the need for a fair tri­al and the com­mu­ni­ty’s pre­judg­ments, set­ting the stage for a legal bat­tle that is as much about bat­tling soci­etal views as it is about evi­dence and ali­bis. Through detailed nar­ra­tive and care­ful char­ac­ter devel­op­ment, this chap­ter deft­ly estab­lish­es the emo­tion­al and social land­scape that Kya must tra­verse to prove her inno­cence.