Wow.
This is one of the things I love about anthologies, that they are so often filled with perfect gems from authors I would not otherwise encounter. Alix Harrow's story is set in an alternative America where the land is resisting colonisation, where the native peoples have a connection with the land that, Mythago Wood-like, confound attempts to force settlement - but, while into the early 20th Century the United States has barely reached the Mississippi, it still seems that the technology and perseverance and cruelty of the European settlers will dominate.
The POV character is Oona, the progeny of a drunken Irishman and a native Amerind woman, employed through necessity as a Mapmaker, someone able to help the invaders find their way into the hostile land. Harrow wonderfully portrays the dichotomy of seeking to earn a living in the economy imposed by the white man while betraying her own heritage and a people who have shunned her half-breed nature. We also get a glimpse, via footnote, into wider world of native magic; of the headwaters of the Nile being an inland ocean populated by gods, of Ireland filled with hallucinatory mists and transient fairy mounds.
Just beautiful.
