Publisher's Synopsis
There is nothing in the woods. Nothing at all.
Strange things happen in Briar Hollow--or "Briar Holler," as locals call it. Those who venture too deep have been known to hallucinate, commit suicide, or disappear entirely.
In 1872, the citizens of a nearby community banished a young woman to live out her days alone in these woods. When young scholar and folklorist Edgar Threshing arrives to visit the witch's grave, he finds himself trapped in a story more horrifying than any Appalachian witch-tale he has ever encountered in his research.
Now, his friend Sylvia Craw, haunted by her own mysterious heritage and armed with her knowledge of local folklore and superstition, may be his only hope of escaping the unlit paths and impassable thickets of the forest. The things that reside in Briar Holler, however, have plans of their own for these two guests, who must live out this new chapter in a dark folktale that will leave them both forever changed.
Dr. Hargrove sat at his desk, poised over a photocopied page from the Cora Wade manuscript, his brow furrowed. Skull. Saturnian. And this letter. Theban script? A droplet beside this curved, breast-like shape describes lunar qualities. Or milk? He had been sitting in awe of the dense, hieroglyphic-like formulas before him for two hours, his cup of tea now cold and forgotten on the edge of his desk. Hargrove had seen sabbatic writing before, but never a sample from America, and never one from the eighteen hundreds. This was an unusual find.
It was clear that Edgar was in over his head with this one. The notes Hargrove found on the edges of the stack of copies, which Edgar carelessly abandoned on the machine in the faculty office lobby, described the diary's contents as "unhinged nonsense," but these formulas were hinged quite carefully. They were precise, sharp as a razor. Just because the meaning was enigmatic did not mean, he knew, that it was unreasoned. Sabbat-speak was the instinctive language of witches, unbound by time and cultural context. Very few scholars had had the privilege of studying an original sample, and those who did not do so quietly sometimes disappeared, like Adam Trestle at Oxford... Wes Wickley is a Southern Appalachian native and a folklore enthusiast. He enjoys old trees, country drives, and ghost stories. He holds an MFA in creative writing. This is his first novel.
