In 1946, the Fae leave earth as quickly and as mysteriously as they came. After five hundred years of dwelling with humans, bringing magic, chaos, and strife, they simply disappear, leaving hundreds of thousands of half-fair children in their wake.
   

   A year later, on the edge of a little coal town somewhere in the mountains of Appalachia, ten year old half-fae Wesley Grove finds a beast chained in his cousin’s backyard shed. The night that his half-elfin blood produces a shocking effect on the creature, the men in his life see a chance to understand the horrors they’ve lived through. 
   

   The man raising him, Sal Whittaker, searches for answers about the hell he endured in the first World War. Sal’s closest friend, Philip Hess, wrestles with an all-encompassing grief, grasping for a way to bring back what he’s lost. An older boy, Bernard Rowe, resents the power Wes’s blood has robbed him of. 
   

   And Wesley, floundering through the loss of his Fair mother, just wants things to make sense. Maybe he was left behind because he can’t change shape like other Fair Folk can. Maybe if he were a dog, things would be different. 
   

   With Sal’s old bloodhound, Grizzly Bear, by his side, he might find a way to survive.