A SHIVER IN THE AIR

my orders: take her to the hills and leave her there, for the sprites to strip her bones.
But I brought her here instead.”
Maddie glances at the Hobson baby, at Juney in her weary sleep. The Shee waits,
for the Shee have all the time in the world.
Maddie kisses the child’s cold forehead and wraps the blanket closer. Wordlessly,
she lifts the baby up. Raising one elegant eyebrow, the Shee gathers the tiny bundle
into the curve of her free arm and lowers the changeling child gently into Maddie’s lap.
Shiver of air and a ghost of a laugh, and Maddie’s staring into emptiness.
The changeling has a tiny spiderweb mark upon her rosepetal cheek, like a tracery of
lace. Blinking back tears, Maddie gathers her up and walks light as the snowfall across
the cold room. Juney Hobson hears her anyway; she waits braced for grief as Maddie
leans in and places the warm heavy bundle into her arms.
Maddie smiles.
“Juney, sit up, now: your little ‘un’s hungry.”
***
About The Sorrow Hill Series:
The stories of Sorrows Hill take place in the haunted hills and hollows of Northern
Virginia and Appalachia during the bloody and tragic years of the American Civil War.
Inspired by ghost tales, Celtic fairy legends and the narratives of those who lived and
fought during those times, the Sorrows Hill stories chronicle the lives and adventures of
those who live in our world as well as the mysterious realm under the faerie mound
known as Sorrows Hill, where the serpentine Sea King rules and a day can last a minute
or a hundred years.
The Sorrows Hill series features a gallery of characters including ageless
shapeshifter Daniel MacKenzie, the hill witch Maddie Cain, schoolmaster Isaac Bonner
and the Merchant clan of dark magicians. Up in Washington, the operatives of President
Lincoln’s secret force, the Office of Extraordinary Phenomena, run by the mysterious
Mr. Geddes and his trusted agent Thomas Cooper, search for magical means to win the
war. Alliances and shapes change again and again, as the world above and the world
below meet in that dread place known as Sorrows Hill.