M. Reese Kennedy

The Artist in the Pines M. Reese Kennedy

He steps into view on a day so warm that the pines ooze resin and the forest is thick with its vapors -- a scraggly-bearded drifter, oddly dressed and toting canvas rolls in a quiver. When he stops at a cabin to sketch, it seems an unpromising intrusion -- the man there has recently lost his wife, and the boy his mother. But the drifter is kind enough to the child and brings an eerie sort of talent to the easel, and as he camps in the yard a treasure of fantastical paintings begins to fill the household. The unlikely trio is finding its stride, but events are in progress that will impact them all.