Ghost of Butternut Fields

Book excerpt: What is this dank chill that wafts darkly from the river; seeping into the crumbling entrails of wall, floor and curtain? From the moment the Rusk family glimpses ‘Butternut Fields’ through pouring rain and overgrown brush—it is evident that mystery shrouds the house and grounds. Tyler, Lawton, Cecil, and Tess Rusk—recently uprooted from their apartment in Milwaukee due to Depression era hardship—reluctantly settle into their mother’s run-down childhood home near Butternut, Wisconsin—now manned by foreboding Aunt Iris. Tyler Rusk, the eldest at nearly eighteen—grapples with resentment caused by his father’s war injuries, his mother’s absence, and mounting pressures to be the strong man of the family. Soon to be sixteen, Lawton escapes into the reverie of his cartoon art as he navigates through his parents’ separation, capricious young love, and baffling events as unpredictable as Northern Wisconsin’s changing seasons. Tess abounds with curious speculations and optimism. Her childlike innocence gives way to awareness as she stands by her disabled brother, Cecil—who hears beyond the floorboards and sees through the curtains of night. Youthful hilarity and Lawton’s signature artwork are juxtaposed against an eerie backdrop of preternatural lore—as layers are painstakingly uncovered to reveal a decades-old, bloodcurdling reality.