Chapter 4
At 5:30 the next afternoon, Sophie leaned against one of the sturdy wooden railings around the wide open area along the outskirts of Lighting Gap that everyone called the fairgrounds. Not because there were permanent exhibit spaces or barns, or even because they actually held any kind of fair there most years.
It was just one of those habits in a small town. No one knew when it started or why. But no one felt particularly inclined to change it.
Past the broad grass and gravel space behind her, the ridgeline rose up sharp and spectacular. The nearly vertical layers of limestone that broke through the hardwoods and pines gave witness to the violent birth of the mountains all around. Sophie had often tried to imagine what the truly gigantic mountain that stood here looked like be
