BIRCH a witch tree

“Megan comes to understand the dead not only speak, sometimes they cry out for justice.”

Ten years ago, Megan stole forty dollars and a gas card, packed her belongings into her father’s rusty Ford, and put her small-minded hometown in her rearview mirror. She drove east through the Cascades and began art school in Seattle, trying not to think about the carnage she left behind.

After her father’s unexpected death, Megan must return home for his funeral. Standing at the base of the tree where he took his last breath, the past engulfs her like fog around a tombstone. As a child on this very spot, she made a pact with a witch. In exchange for protection, Megan vowed to help the witch and offered up her most prized possession, a charm bracelet, as collateral. When the charms of the bracelet begin to turn up at her father’s funeral, Megan knows her debt to the witch has come due.

The charms, collected with her father as a child, show up at the strangest times and fill the gaps in her memory. They also raise questions. Why was Preacher axing down the birch tree with Megan’s bracelet in his pocket? Was the woman buried beneath it really a witch? Why is Megan waking up to find canvases propped on her easel with the paint still wet? And why is the birch tree always the subject of those phantom paintings?

As Megan researches the woman buried beneath the tree, she comes to understand that the dead not only speak, sometimes they cry out for justice. Megan hopes she is able to unearth the truth before she ends up dead like her father.

Megan’s journey of self-discovery mirrors that of the accused witch buried under the birch. Their lives and the life and death of Megan’s father plait together into a tale of forgiveness, acceptance, and redemption.