The Winter People

The Winter People (2014) by Jennifer McMahon is a domestic thriller with supernatural elements. The novel alternates between past and present timelines to tell the story of the residents of a rural farm in Vermont across centuries. When Sara Harrison Shea’s daughter Gertie dies in 1908, she uses a ritual to revive her daughter for seven days, with terrible results. A century later, the instructions for the ritual are discovered by a photographer who recently lost his son to leukemia. These two events culminate in a confrontation with a supernatural creature in the caves under a rock formation known as the Devil’s Hand. The novel deals with themes of The Impact of Loss and Grief on the Human Psyche, The Intersection of Folklore and Reality, and The Strength of Parent-Child Relationships.

Jennifer McMahon has written many domestic thrillers that include ghosts and other spooky creatures. McMahon’s novel The Drowning Kind (2021), also set in rural Vermont, was a New York Times bestseller.

This guide uses the 2014 Vintage Books paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death by suicide, graphic violence, pregnancy loss, child death, and anti-Indigenous racism.

Language note: The text uses the term “Indian” for Indigenous Americans, which this guide reproduces in quotation only.

Plot Summary

In the late 19th and early 20th century, Sara Harrison grows up on a small farm three miles outside the small town of West Hall, Vermont. She was raised by her father and an Indigenous-Quebecois woman she calls Auntie. As a child, Sara saw the reanimated corpse of a girl in her town who died of typhoid fever in the woods. Auntie tells her it is a “sleeper.” Sleepers live for seven days, unless they kill someone, in which case they live forever. Auntie writes down the instructions for how to summon a sleeper so that Sara can use it when she is older. Although Auntie is known as a healer in town, the townspeople suspect she is a witch. They convince Sara’s father to banish Auntie. In revenge, Auntie kills Sara’s brother. Sara’s father then shoots Auntie and burns her cabin down. Sara believes Auntie is dead and never speaks of her again.

Years later, Sara marries Martin Shea and they live together on the farm. They have one daughter, Gertie, who is Sara’s pride and joy after three pregnancy losses and the death of their infant son. One day, Martin finds Auntie’s ring in the fields. He tries to give it to Sara, but she insists he rebury it for fear that Auntie’s spirit will come to haunt them. Instead, Martin keeps the ring. That winter, during a heavy snowfall, Martin goes out to kill a fox who got into their chicken coop and killed two of their chickens. When he returns, he nails the fox pelt to the barn wall to dry. Sara finds him there. She is frantic: Gertie followed him outside and has yet to return.

After a night of searching, Gertie’s body is found at the bottom of a well. Sara is devastated. She decides to do the sleeper ritual to have more time with her daughter. Gertie returns as a sleeper through her bedroom closet. Sara finds messages she presumes to be from Gertie, saying that Gertie was murdered and that there is an item in her pocket that will tell her who killed her. Meanwhile, Martin grows increasingly worried about Sara’s erratic behavior. He does not believe Gertie has returned. Sara determines to dig up Gertie’s grave to see what she has in her pockets. Martin pretends to agree to help her, but he instead has her bound to her bed with the help of his brother and the town sheriff. He thinks she has a mental illness.

After a few days, Sara plays along so they will untie her. Gertie gives her Auntie’s ring, which was in her pocket. Sara confronts her husband at gunpoint and accuses him of killing Gertie because he was the one who had the ring. He denies it. He tries to grab the gun and it goes off accidentally, shooting him in the chest. Martin runs into the woods. While he is there, Auntie returns to the house. She survived the fire and reveals that she killed Gertie to get revenge on Sara’s family for how Sara’s father treated her. She leads Sara outside at gunpoint. Martin returns and Auntie begins beating him. Gertie sneaks up from behind and kills Auntie with an axe to the head. Sara skins Auntie so that her body cannot be identified and people will assume Sara has died. She hides a written account of her experiences in the house. Then, Sara and Gertie, now immortal, flee to live in the caves under the Devil’s Hand. Gertie lives on the blood of humans who wander into the caves.

Decades later, Alice and James Washburne are contacted by the current residents of the house, Bridget and Thomas O’Rourke. They have found the instructions for the sleeper ritual, which must be performed in the caves under the Devil’s Hand, and they hope to sell them to make a lot of money. Alice, James, Bridget, Thomas, and the O’Rourkes’ young daughter go to explore the caves. Gertie kills Bridget and Thomas. Alice and James adopt their daughter, whom they call Ruthie, and resolve to stay at the house to keep Gertie company and protect others from her. They live off-the-grid with little to no access to the outside world. They have another daughter named Fawn. Years later, James dies of a presumed heart attack.

Years later, a photographer named Gary finds a box of old photographs that includes instructions for the sleeper ritual. He recently lost his son to leukemia and wants to summon him back. He goes to West Hall and meets with Alice to talk about it. She tries to dissuade him from his plans. On his way back to Boston, Gary dies in a car crash. Alice, who was following him, steals the camera with the pictures of the instructions on them out of the car so that no one else will have access to them. His wife, Katherine, goes to West Hall to find out what happened to her husband. She learns about Sara, Alice, and the mysteries of the Devil’s Hand.

On New Year’s Day, Alice is kidnapped by Gertie, who is feeling lonely and abandoned. Alice’s daughters, Ruthie and Fawn, search Alice’s room and find the O’Rourkes’ driver’s licenses. Ruthie’s boyfriend Buzz drives them to Connecticut to talk to Thomas O’Rourke’s sister, Candace. Candace seems mentally unstable, so Ruthie leaves before she can find out more. A few days later, Candace turns up at the house. She holds the sisters at gunpoint and demands they tell her where the ritual instructions are. She wants to sell them and use the money for a lawyer to get custody of her son. While they talk, Katherine breaks into the house. She finds the camera that Alice took from Gary’s car. On the camera, they find a map to the caves under the Devil’s Hand.

The group goes to explore the caves to find Alice. In the caves, Katherine performs the ritual to summon her husband Gary back as a sleeper. They find Alice and free her. Gertie finds and kills Candace. The rest of the group escapes back to the house. Alice explains the whole story and encourages Ruthie to stay at the house to take on the responsibility of looking after Gertie and warning people away from the caves. Ruthie agrees to consider it. Katherine returns home, where she hears scratching at her door.