Clay McLeod Chapman
Description
When Ella moves to Pilot's Knob, Virginia, with her young daughter Jessica to start an apothecary, rumors swirl that her shop is a front for witchcraf
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t. That doesn't stop townswomen from visiting the beautiful and mysterious herbalist when traditional medicine fails them. But when a prominent woman miscarries after taking one of Ella's home-made brews, the town accuses Ella and Jessica, by association, of witchcraft and burns them at the stake. Ella is hastily buried in the woods, her grave never to be found, but Jessica is buried in a steel-reinforced coffin, surrounded by a fence of interconnected crosses. It's this extreme act of precaution that keeps their story alive. Sightings of Jessica's ghost wandering around her grave, looking for her mother, add to the legend as it's told--and re-told--around summer campfires for decades. But the horrible truth won't be revealed until Amber Lynn--a dead ringer for Jessica--is cast in the '70s horror adaptation inspired by The Witch Girl of Pilot's Knob. Amber Lynn will claim to meet the real Ella, a troubling assertion that will spark rumors of her insanity and slowly destroy her career. When she returns for the remake in the '90s to play Ella, the disappearance of a little girl will turn into a witch-hunt, with all eyes on Amber Lynn. Her one hope for redemption will come decades later as a true-crime investigator looks into the '90s disappearance and the original legend. But will this final mode of story-telling redeem Amber Lynn or bring an unfathomable horror to the surface?
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