When Nellie Gardner learns that she has inherited a turpentine estate from her long-lost grandfather, she throws everything she can think of in her pickup and flees to Georgia with her 11-year-old son, Max, in tow. August Redfern’s “estate” is a decrepit farmhouse on a thousand acres of old pine forest, but Nellie sees it as the perfect refuge --- a safe place to hide from her violent husband and the chance for a fresh start. But Max sees what his mother can’t: Redfern Hill is no haven. Something lurks beneath the soil, ancient and hungry, with the power to corrupt hearts and destroy souls. And Nellie’s return is about to wake it up.

Ever since her father was killed when she was just a child, Miranda Crabtree has kept her head down and her eyes up, ferrying contraband for a mad preacher and his declining band of followers to make ends meet and to protect an old witch and a secret child from harm. But dark forces are at work in the bayou, both human and supernatural, conspiring to disrupt the rhythms of Miranda’s peculiar and precarious life. And when the preacher makes an unthinkable demand, it sets Miranda on a desperate, dangerous path, forcing her to consider what she is willing to sacrifice to keep her loved ones safe.