The Unfinished: Chapters 1–5

by Cheryl Isaacs
When teen athlete Avery finds herself haunted by beings from Kanyen’kehá:ka (Mohawk) stories, she must reconnect with her own culture to find a way to save her family and her town.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Chapters 1–5, Chapters 6–10, Chapters 11–15, Chapters 16–20, Chapters 21–25
15 words 9 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. outcropping
    part of a rock formation that juts above surrounding land
    Different kinds of trees—maple, aspen, birch, and fir—all lived together here, with massive outcroppings of limestone and the underground streams that popped up intermittently.
  2. intermittently
    in a manner of stopping and starting at irregular intervals
    Different kinds of trees—maple, aspen, birch, and fir—all lived together here, with massive outcroppings of limestone and the underground streams that popped up intermittently.
  3. meticulously
    in a manner marked by extreme care of details
    During the year, the cross-country team ran meticulously planned routes along the back roads and finished with a long stretch along a two-lane highway, only considered safe because our coach was looking out for traffic.
  4. corrugated
    shaped into alternating parallel grooves and ridges
    I could sit down and lean against one of the corrugated tree trunks.
  5. elicit
    call forth, as an emotion, feeling, or response
    Panic propelled me forward until I popped through and stumbled out into the path of cyclists, eliciting shouts and a flurry of bells, my watch singing its resurrection song.
  6. brandish
    move or swing back and forth
    “What”—Mom stepped out into the foyer brandishing my phone and blocking any escape—“happened to you?”
  7. plaintive
    expressing sorrow
    Plaintive meows, and suddenly I had a cat in my lap.
  8. feign
    give a false appearance of
    The edge of the bed dipped, but I’d committed to feigning sleep and was too stubborn to give up now.
  9. placid
    calm and free from disturbance
    The water that was placid and smooth rippled just once, a single raindrop hitting the surface from the other side.
  10. saccharine
    overly sweet
    I managed a saccharine smile.
  11. fetid
    offensively malodorous
    My beloved aroma turned fetid and foul.
  12. sentient
    endowed with feeling and unstructured consciousness
    The black liquid reached the top of my cup and spilled over, sending thin sentient fingers slithering toward Key’s hands resting on the table, seeking him out.
  13. surreptitious
    marked by quiet and caution and secrecy
    Fiddling with my backpack for a moment gave me time to send a surreptitious glance back at him, check out his body language to make sure we really were okay.
  14. mote
    a tiny piece of anything
    My sweeping had sent dust motes drifting through a shaft of light coming in the window.
  15. brackish
    distasteful and unpleasant
    There was a brackish, coppery smell that enveloped me at all times, almost overpowering.
Created on Tue Sep 01 08:16:57 EDT 2026 (updated Tue Sep 22 10:32:46 EDT 2026)

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