"Robin, a young Confederate soldier, battles from a valley of blood to a burning wilderness to labyrinthine trenches. He clings - despite the slaughter of friends and the shattering of illusions - to what gives him strength, to the beautiful and the uncanny: psalms, pictures of loved ones, and an old tale about a pair of mysterious, green-hued children found in a wolf pit. These he carries with him inside the very palisades of hell, the Elmira prison camp.".

"Agate, the daughter of a hired-out slave, embraces the forbidden teachings of her mistress, Miss Fanny. But the images she has fashioned for herself shatter when she deeply offends her owner, Young Master, who carries out a swift and cruel punishment. At the Williams Home Place, Agate learns the meaning of her mother's cautionary tales as she struggles to survive loss and degradation and to pit knowledge and truth against evil."--BOOK JACKET.