In bitterly divided western North Carolina, Confederate troops execute thirteen men and boys suspected of Unionism. The Shelton Laurel Massacre, as it came to be known, is a microcosm of the horrors of civil war—neighbor against neighbor and violence at one's own front door. Told by those who lived it—the colonel's wife, a helpless witness; the jealous second-in-command who gives the fatal order; the canny mountain woman who cares only for her people and her land; the conscript, a haunted man seeking redemption; and the mute girl, whose folk magic yields an unexpected result—these voices offer an intimate glimpse into the lives of five people tangled in history's web, caught up together in love and hate.