Spirit of Covington
A Novel
Excerpt
Chapter One: Winds of Change
At midnight on August 2, the wind slackened, then stirred. Gusts sent leaves scurrying. A tiny spark from a cigarette, casually tossed by eighteen-year-old Brad Herrill returning home from a party, flared to life among dry leaves and snaked toward the woods. In the farmhouses fronting the woods on Cove Road, men, women, and children slept.
By two A.M., a necklace of gold edged the outer fringe of trees, and by three A.M. it had crawled into the woods. Heat from the fire sucked moisture from tree trunks. Bursts of wind stirred the flames, causing widening bands of them to veer across pastures, toward barns and farmhouses. In their stalls, cows and horses snorted and pawed the earth, and still the occupants of the houses slept.
In the farmhouse, Amelia Declose awakened. Through her ... read full excerpt from The Spirit of Covington: A Novel ebook
