The Knight and the Butcherbird

Set hundreds of years after the end of the world, the Appalachian community of Iron Hollow is beset by demons, common in the outlands where most folks die young, if they don't turn into monsters first. Shrike, a seventeen-year-old town storyteller known as a Secretary, is determined to protect her wife-turned-demon May from a legendary knight dispatched to hunt her down. Shrike stalks the knight and his demon-hunting hawk through the recesses of the forest, but as they creep through toxic creeks and overgrown kudzu, she realizes the knight has a secret of his own. What begins as a monster-hunter story quickly transforms into a meditation on climate change, illness, marginalization, and the stubborn persistence of love in the face of catastrophic change.