According to Christophine, the new white families who move into Mr. Luttrell's old estate bring trouble to their lives. These families further upset a tenuous social balance by highlighting the difference between prosperous English whites and poor, powerless white Creoles. Antoinette's forest dream and the heavy footsteps that she hears behind her represent the approach of new English colonials, who have come to the islands to make their wealth and to reap the rewards from the old slave owners' misfortunes. While her mother begins to re- emerge herself in this propertied society, Antoinette spends less and less time at Coulibri, feeling unsettled and apprehensive about the new arrivals.