A RUNAWAY BRIDE, MYSTERIOUS VOICES IN THE FOREST, LOVE AND MURDER-THE KEENANS ANTICIPATED NONE OF THIS WHEN THEY FLED TO TWO MOUNTAINS BEFORE WASHINGTON WAS PRESIDENT.

The Keenan family flees troubles in Ireland and settles in western North Carolina, under two mountains the Indians call "The Brothers." The valley brooded over by the Brothers is magical, and soon the expanding Keenan clan and other human settlers are confronted by the "first peoples," supernatural beings of the woods, the steep cliffs, and deep antiquity. One of them, The One of the Beautiful Necklaces, can bestow love the likes of which few mortals outside the curious little valley have felt. This, of course, is both a blessing and a curse.

Excerpt

In the end they did not have to start a conversation. The first traveler they met after they decided to converse volunteered, "It's goin' bad."

"What is?" Aramaea said. Frankie had eased around to hide himself behind his friend. Even at home Frankie was a little bashful. Aramaea could feel his friend's breath on the back of his neck.

"The war. We keep winning battles, but we ain't winning the war. And now that horrible thing up in Madison-"

Aramaea felt Frankie start behind him. Maybe all the talk in Asheville was of the war, or maybe the man had read their minds, like one of the prophets in the bible. His beard and hair were trimmed, but besides that he had that prophetic look about him.

"That's why we came. We mean to join up with General Lee."

The man looked them up and down as though he were suddenly interested in buying them.

"Where you from?"

"Two Mountains."

The stranger took off his hat and gestured sweepingly in the direction from which the boys had come. "Oh, that's queer country. Hope you boys ain't as queer as the country you come from. Bloody Madison. It's a shame." The man took a step closer, as if he could judge the truth of their statements by smelling them. "You got ghosts there? I heard you have ghosts."

Frankie unexpectedly piped up from behind Aramaea's broad back, "They ain't ghosts, exactly."

"Then what are they, exactly?"