'A Fevered Land'
A pragmatic ranch owner's progeny, property and persuasions are transformed when a spiritual healer explores the long-running history of horse illness and death at her farm.
When Darcy Bambrough's filly becomes the latest in a line of horses to develop a grave illness, her mother, Laurel, exhausts every prospect to nurse the filly back to health. Tormented by the impending death, Laurel desperately agrees to let a close friend bring a spiritualist to the farm to identify any unseen cause for the recurring illnesses.
Antebellum slavery, Native American mythos, animism, spirituality, horse fable, family interplay, the role of women as nurturers and a coming-of-age experience all play out when the healer unveils a formidable threat that is on an order of magnitude far beyond what the Bambrough family has perceived.
The healer conducts a powerful ceremony which links a Native American spirit guide with an escaped slave girl to reverse the ranch's misfortune and restore it to a generative state. The Bambrough family, propelled by this extraordinary undertaking, whipsaws between relief and turmoil toward a transformed destiny.
Convincing and evocative, 'A Fevered Land' vividly depicts how complex but imperceptible factors shape and determine our everyday life.