PRAISE FOR

Four and Twenty Blackbirds

“Southern Gothic at its best. An absorbing mystery told with humor and bite.”

—Kelley Armstrong, author of Industrial Magic and the Otherworld series

“Cherie Priest has created a chilling page-turner in her debut novel. Her voice is rich, earthy, soulful, and deliciously Southern as she weaves a disturbing yarn like a master! Awesome—gives you goose bumps!”

—L. A. Banks, author of Minion and The Vampire Huntress Legend series

“Breathlessly readable, palpably atmospheric, and compellingly suspenseful, Four and Twenty Blackbirds is a considerable debut. It’s written with great control and fluency, and it looks like the start of quite a career.”

—Ramsey Campbell, World Horror Grand Master

“Four and Twenty Blackbirds is a rare bird, the novel you wish you’d written yourself—excellent!”

—C. J. Henderson, author of The Things That Are Not There

“Wonderful. Enchanting. Amazing and original fiction that will satisfy that buttery Southern taste, as well as that biting aftertaste of the dark side. I loved it.”

—Joe R. Lansdale, Stoker- and Edgar-winning author of The Bottoms

“Cherie Priest has mastered the art of braiding atmosphere, suspense, and metaphysics into a resonant ghost story that offers even more than what you hope for.”

—Katherine Ramsland, author of Ghost: Investigating the Other Side

“Four and Twenty Blackbirds is an extraordinary first novel—heck, it’s an extraordinary novel, period. It’s a ghost story and a voodoo mystery—and like any good Southern Gothic, it has a healthy obsession with race and inbreeding. But Blackbirds is more than the sum of its traditional parts. Cherie Priest’s writing, while decidedly capable of giving you the creeps, is infused with a refreshing spunkiness and interesting, believable characters. . . . Fans of supernatural horror should keep an eye on Cherie Priest!”

—SciFiDimensions.com

Four and Twenty
Blackbirds

CHERIE PRIEST

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

FOUR AND TWENTY BLACKBIRDS

Copyright © 2003, 2005 by Cherie Priest

Unrevised, shorter version published in 2003 by Marietta Publishing

Edited by Liz Gorinsky

Book design by Nicole de las Heras

A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Priest, Cherie.

Four and twenty blackbirds / Cherie Priest.—1st Tor ed.

p. cm.

“A Tom Doherty Associates Book.”

ISBN 0-765-31308-1 (pbk.)

EAN 978-0-765-31308-9

1. Orphans—Fiction. 2. Young women—Fiction. 3. Blessing and cursing—Fiction. 4. Racially mixed people—Fiction. 5. Signal Mountain (Tenn.)—Fiction. 6. Birthfathers—Fiction. 7. Georgia—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3616.R537F685 2005
813’.6—dc22

2005040584

First Tor Edition: October 2005

Printed in the United States of America

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This book is dedicated to the kids in my life—
my little mortality markers,
Alex and Chelsea.
Now you two are getting old enough to hear
my really good spooky stories.