Casket Braid

It was woven to remember the dead. Now, it wants to join the living.

Felix Kettlewell is a man who lives in the past. As a solitary conservator of organic antiques, he specializes in the dying art of Victorian hair work—wreaths and jewelry woven from the strands of the deceased. When he is commissioned to restore a massive, ceiling-height "family tree" at the decaying Pennefather estate in Gallow's Green, Vermont, he expects a challenge of craftsmanship, not survival.

The structure, dating ba...