The Story

While America mobilizes for a global war against fascism, a hidden battle takes root at home. In rural Virginia, a community is united under a banner of patriotism. But beneath the surface of local fox hunts, war bonds and victory gardens lies a dangerous local remnant of the America First movement and the German-American Bund, operated by one the town's leading citizens. Through the pages of Kay's nature journals, a hidden threat emerges: a Nazi espionage ring using the isolation of the forest to subvert the very democracy the town's young men are shipping off to defend.

The Stakes

The war isn't just overseas. It is embedded in the soil, the family home and the stories they tell. As global conflict rages, the law is being weaponized. Inspired by eugenics and emboldened by the state's Racial Integrity Act of 1924, Walter Plecker, the state registrar, has instituted a harsh new registration policy. Targeting the surnames of specific Indigenous families, the new policy aims to systematically rewrite the identities of neighbors and friends as either "White" or "Colored." When Kay bridges this social divide to explore the woods with Webster, a boy of ambiguous race, she exposes a truth far more dangerous than foreign spies: the violence rooted in her own bloodline.

The Vision

An anthropological look at the artifacts of a family crime. Written and illustrated with a deep understanding of archaeology, Virginia ecology and history, Kay's Journal treats the landscape of Virginia as a living repository of human experience, survival and unspoken secrets. This is not a story of easy heroism. It is an exploration of complicity, a tragic cover-up, and the heavy burdens passed down through generations. The forest floor doesn't just bury history. It hides the evidence beneath the shadows of ancient petroglyphs.