""And because the town of this story is what it is, there came to dwell in it a Spirit -- a strange, mysterious power -- playful, vicious, deadly; a Something to be at once feared and courted; to be denied -- yet confessed in the denial; a deadly enemy, a welcome friend, an all-powerful Ally."" This story began in the Ozark Mountains. It follows the trail that is nobody knows how old. But mostly this story happened in Corinth, a town of the middle class in a Middle Western state. . . .