Dillard Wayne Early Jr. starts his senior year of high school tomorrow, in Forrestville, Tennessee. His father, Dillard Sr., was once the pastor of a “Church of Christ’s Disciples with Signs of Belief” (6), where congregants handled rattlesnakes and drank diluted battery acid and strychnine. He is now in Riverbend Prison in Nashville for “possession of more than 100 images depicting a minor engaged in sexual activity” (6). Dill’s mother works as a motel maid. 

Dill writes songs and plays the guitar, and he is secretly in love with his best friend Lydia Blankenship, a fashion blogger with big dreams of a successful career. Today, she drives him to Nashville to help him buy clothes for the new school year.

They pick up Travis Bohannon, whose father owns a lumberyard. Travis— tall, bulky, and dressed all in black—is a fan of a fantasy book series called Bloodfall. He carries an “oaken staff,” which he carved.

Lydia feels happy about starting her senior year. She also has feelings for Dill, but she refuses to explore them. She brings Dill and Travis to a vintage clothes shop that “smelled of old leather, wool, and denim” (13).