Days of Sun and Shadow

Set in the American South from 1813 to the early 1850s, the novel opens with a mystical prologue in which an ancient entity describes its bond with a great pale owl. Once a single spirit in the Scottish Highlands, the entity and Owl separated when the entity entered a mortal body, becoming "the mother of mothers." Some female descendants inherited the Sight, a supernatural ability to perceive events beyond ordinary awareness. After generations, Owl and the entity follow their lineage to America, where the entity is reborn with only fragmentary memories of its other existence.

In August 1813, Owl perches near Fort Mims in Alabama, a stockade sheltering settlers, mixed-blood Creeks, and enslaved people during the Creek War. Delpha McCain, heavily pregnant after a day of fruitless labor, storms out of the fort with her mother, Morag McCorkle Cathcart. As Delpha labors in the forest, hundreds of Red Stick Creek warriors overrun the fort and kill or capture everyone inside, including Delpha's six older children. A warrior pursues the women, but Morag and Owl fight him off. Delpha delivers a baby girl but refuses the infant, blaming her for her siblings' deaths.

The baby, Emilie, grows up in St. Stephens, Alabama. At seven, she foresees the death of her Aunt Cillie, who is killed hours later by a rattlesnake bite. Delpha treats Emilie with open hostility. Emilie moves in with Morag, who recognizes the Sight as a gift inherited through their Scottish lineage and warns Emilie to keep it secret. The night before Emilie's 11th birthday, Delpha wades into the creek carrying rocks and drowns.

Susanna Ross, a destitute widow from the Appalachian Mountains, arrives in St. Stephens. Emilie, who has dreamed of Susanna's arrival, declares that Susanna is "gonna be my mama" (51). Emilie's father, James McCain, hires Susanna for housework and weaving. Emilie teaches Susanna to read, and genuine affection develops across the household. When James announces his plan to move to Arkansas Territory, he proposes to Susanna, who accepts.

The family travels by wagon and steamboat through Mobile and New Orleans. On the riverboat, Emilie befriends the twin daughters of Madeleine Charbonneau, a veiled woman posing as a white French Creole widow. A prophetic dream reveals that two gamblers plan to kidnap the girls and sell them into slavery. Emilie warns Madeleine, earning her trust by naming Jacques Quatrepomme, Madeleine's secret husband. Born enslaved as Jolie on a sugar plantation, Madeleine was sold to a New Orleans parlor house and forced into years of sexual exploitation. After a rival slashed her face and yellow fever nearly killed her, Jacques, a free Black carpenter, bought her freedom and married her. To protect their family, Jolie reinvented herself as a white widow while Jacques established himself in Washington, Arkansas, their marriage concealed. On the overland trace, the gamblers ambush the group, but Morag shoots one and Madeleine kills both with her dueling pistols. In Washington, Madeleine reunites briefly with Jacques.

Emilie thrives at the horse farm of Gordon and Caroline McCain, James's relatives, bonding with their young son, Caleb. James, whose political ambitions grow, forces Emilie to attend a finishing school, where she is miserable and ostracized. After months of conflict, she defies him, calling the students "despicable, backbiting, hypocritical sows" (172), and returns to the farm. She acquires Morning Star, a battered sorrel mare scarred by abuse. When Owl lands near Star and the horse sees the bird, Emilie recognizes her once-in-a-lifetime horse. She breeds Star to a gray stallion named Ash.

Keller McCain, the youngest son of James's cousin Hugh McCain, courts Emilie with charm, confessing he cannot read. His internal perspective reveals his true motive: He views Emilie as a financial asset whose Sight could predict gambling outcomes. They marry when Emilie is 20. On their wedding night, Keller demands she use the Sight for gambling; when she refuses, he abandons her emotionally. The marriage deteriorates into theft and cruelty. In the worst betrayal, Keller brings a stranger home to settle a gambling debt; the man beats and rapes Emilie, and Keller rapes her afterward. From that night, they live in separate rooms, and Emilie arms herself with a bowie knife.

Susanna's cousin David Crockett arrives in Washington in December 1835, bound for Texas. Cherry, the colt Emilie bred from Star, wins the quarter-mile race with Caleb, now 15, riding. Keller sells Star, leaving Emilie destitute. Caleb holds Keller at gunpoint until Keller departs for Texas with Crockett's expedition. Emilie discovers she is pregnant from the rape.

Through Owl's eyes, Emilie witnesses the fall of the Alamo and believes Keller is dead, though he escaped the night before. She gives birth at Cathcart Plantation on the same day Adelie, one of Madeleine's twin daughters, delivers a daughter named Rose. That night, Rose dies. Emilie switches the identifying ribbons on the infants' wrists, placing her living daughter in Adelie's cradle and taking the dead child as her own. She reasons that her daughter will have a better life with loving parents, while she, destitute and despairing, fears she might harm the child as Delpha harmed her.

Hugh secretly sustains Emilie during her destitution. Caleb discovers Star on a distant farm and buys her for 25 cents, and Star's return marks Emilie's emotional recovery. She rebuilds her training business. When Jacques is dying, he gives Emilie a coded message for Hugh: "the package is still under the barn" (303). Hugh reveals that he and Jacques have been sheltering people escaping slavery beneath Jacques's barn, and Emilie helps transport a gravely ill fugitive woman to safety.

In 1846, Granny Morag dies at 96, seeing her drowned sister Aila come for her. Walker Wilson, a stagecoach driver and widower, courts Emilie, and after the funeral they become lovers. Emilie, pregnant, agrees to marry Walker but insists on a prenuptial agreement. Caleb offers to marry her instead, but Emilie declines. The marriage proves volatile. When Walker's 13-year-old stepdaughter Miranda, whom he abandoned to an abusive couple after her mother drowned, is dumped on Emilie's doorstep, Emilie takes her in. Walker demands the girl's removal; Emilie refuses. He slaps her; she breaks his nose. He leaves and never returns. Miranda helps deliver Emilie's daughter, Moranna.

In 1849, Keller reappears alive, demanding money and attempting to rape Emilie at gunpoint. She escapes, and when he attacks Star with a rake, Emilie shoots him dead and buries his body in the cesspit. After divorcing Walker, Emilie faces a second proposal from Caleb. She explains that Rose, now 13, increasingly resembles her, and discovery of the swap would devastate Adelie's family. She asks Caleb to come to Texas, but he cannot leave his ailing father. They spend one afternoon as lovers, and Emilie conceives his child. James and Susanna are killed when their buggy overturns, an event Emilie witnesses through Owl but cannot prevent. Madeleine, in farewell, gives Emilie her dueling pistols and a miniature portrait of Rose, revealing she always knew about the swap because of Emilie's poorly tied ribbons.

The McCain caravan crosses Red River by ferry into Texas. Star stands at the front of the boat with Emilie as Owl glides overhead and the baby flutters inside her. Two redbirds fly with the group, weaving halos of golden light before spiraling upward and disappearing. Emilie watches the Arkansas shore recede, carrying the next generation toward a new life.