Booey Creek

In Booey Creek, North Carolina, the mountains hold more than quiet beauty — they hold secrets. For two lifelong friends, a white woman who has never left the valley and a Black woman who made it her home decades ago, the past refuses to stay buried. What seemed like a tragic accident years earlier continues to cast long shadows over families and...

Sometimes the past won’t stay quiet. Sometimes it runs straight into the present.

Malka Gertrude Faygan has never been one to run from hard work—or from the shadows of her past. After a childhood marked by grit and grim lessons on her father’s farm, she carves out a quiet, steady life as a bookkeeper in Booey Creek. From mountain farms to...

When Roan Joy Allman returns to the mountains of Western North Carolina, she hopes a return to the old farmhouse in Booey Creek will offer what her heart longs for—peace, purpose, and a place to begin family history again. The land holds memories that whisper in the rustling trees, some tender and some too painful to name.

As Roan restores the...

When Junia Belle Sorrell returns to Booey Creek after her grandmother’s passing, she plans only to settle the old house and leave again. But the mountain valley holds a pull stronger than she expects. Among her grandmother’s keepsakes, Junia uncovers a box of maps, journals, and small relics—evidence of a secret project to protect Native...

When the floodwaters finally pull back, Booey Creek is left counting what the river took—and what it left behind. Some nights a lone light walks the ridge, a stubborn glow locals call the ghostlight. Others say it’s just someone who can’t sleep.

Eli Henry Tanner, a circus traveler, has never been good at staying. A born fixer with a past that won...

When the remnants of Hurricane Helene sweep through the mountains of Western North Carolina, the storm reshapes more than the valley’s edges. As the floodwaters fall and the old Booey Creek dam gives way, the river exposes what time had long concealed—a small chapel resting in a basin of mud and silence.

Archivist Clara Wynn is asked to help...