The Black Caul

Orpha Deel has pulled every child in Caddis Hollow into the world with her own two hands—midwife, healer, keeper of signs older than the church and darker than the laurel thickets choking the mountain. But when a baby is born under a black caul and cattle scream at dawn, Orpha knows the tithe is coming. Something ancient is climbing through the Hollow, wearing the faces of the beloved dead, and the new preacher tearing down her wards may not be a man at all.