Book II of the Holy Ground Trilogy, continuing the story begun in The Ragged World. Years into the Hefn occupation, Pam Pruitt and Liam O'Hara are coming of age inside a world remade by an alien Directive none of them chose. Sent from the Bureau of Temporal Physics to Hurt Hollow, a quiet homestead on the Kentucky shore of the Ohio River, the two teenagers are drawn into a way of living the Hefn quietly approve of: close to the land, close to each other, and far from everything they thought they understood about themselves. But peace doesn't come easily. As Pam and Liam navigate first love, faith, and the early shape of a new spiritual movement taking root in the Hollow, a shattering event on the way to Kentucky forces them to reckon with who they are becoming, and what the Hefn's plan for Earth might actually cost. A story of growing up under impossible circumstances, and of the fragile, stubborn hope that takes root anyway.