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Chapter 6 The weak dawn light, a watery grey, seeped through the swollen slits of Lizbeth’s eyelids. Her body was a symphony of protest, each shattered bone and bruised muscle screaming in a discordant chorus. She felt herself being lifted, a sudden surge of movement displacing the cold, unyielding ...

Chapter 5 Then, as if on cue, the crowd erupted. A low rumble, a shared intake of breath, and then the chilling Ran Tan chant rose from a hundred throats, a primal chorus that burrowed into the very bones of the night. It was a rhythmic, relentless engine of hate, verses describing transgressions an...

Chapter 4 The cold granite pressed into Lizbeth’s arched spine, a brutal counterpoint to the searing pain that radiated from her stretched limbs. Every nerve ending shrieked, protesting the unnatural curve of her body, bound tighter than a bowstring across the ancient millstone. The last vestige of ...

Chapter 3 As Lizbeth was violently wrenched from the library steps, a choked cry caught in her throat. The figure who seized her was broader, stronger than the young men who’d handled her before. His rough white robes, stained with what looked like dust and old wax, billowed around him. The crudely ...

Chapter 2 The sweltering heat of Poverty Gulch seemed to intensify with each passing day, pressing down on Lizbeth not just physically, but psychologically. She’d tried to connect, to find a common humanity in the dusty, insular town, but her efforts were met with an impenetrable wall of tradition a...

Chapter 1 The ochre dust of Poverty Gulch seemed to settle not just on Lizbeth’s beat-up sedan, but into the very marrow of her bones. It clung to the threadbare curtains of the parsonage, coated the neglected shelves of the library, and veiled the faces of the townspeople in a permanent, grim film....

Steiner’s Crossing, Iowa, wasn’t much to look at on a map – a postage stamp of asphalt and clapboard homes nestled amongst endless fields of corn. But within its borders, it was a universe, orbiting steadfastly around one celestial body: the Steiner’s Chargers high school football team. Fridays unde...

The village of Oakhaven pulsed with a joyous thrum, a collective breath held in anticipation of the day’s zenith. Sunlight, buttery and warm, spilled over cobblestone paths and thatched roofs, illuminating garlands of wildflowers strung between every dwelling. Margaret, Gwen’s younger sister, was to...

Based on true events from Cortland NY in August of 1870 Cortland, New York, 1870. The air, usually thick with the scent of pine and damp earth this time of year, now hung heavy with something else – a palpable stillness, a collective breath held, expectant and grim. News travelled fast in a village ...