The River in Me

In the humid embrace of rural Louisiana along the Ouachita River, Eula Boone is born, the youngest of four sisters in a family shaped by her father's oil rig life. From childhood, Eula is different-barefoot adventures on sparkling banks yield "pings," psychic flashes triggered by touch, revealing hidden truths and histories. Teased as "spell-girl" by bullies like Billy,, she finds solace in the river, her loyal dog Jetta, and artifacts unearthed from Native American, colonial, and Civil War eras, each one a vessel for memories.

As Eula navigates adolescence and young adulthood, her pings intensify during emotional highs, foreshadowing dangers like the great flood, where her family's mound home becomes a haven for strays. Romances bloom and fade-Cade Hargrove, the artistic neighbor boy, shares high school summers of sandbar camps, fishing, fires, and deep love, but his New Orleans art dreams pull him away, leaving Eula torn. Tragedies strike: Jetta's death by gator, Pawpaw's passing flooding her with impossible memories of his WWII Navy days aboard the USS Tennessee and love for Mawmaw.

Eula's path leads to Louisiana Tech for mechanical engineering, her devotion to God deepening with an Aleph tattoo symbolizing divine oneness. Never marrying, she builds a career in infrastructure, her apartment a "tomb" of artifacts and Cade's sketches. In 2024, she joins the massive Meta AI Data Center (Hyperion) in Richland Parish-a $10 billion hyperscale behemoth spanning 3,650 acres, its "enormous walls of water" in cooling towers amplifying her pings to overwhelming visions.

Reunions complicate: Cade returns with his daughter, stirring old love; Billy, now a mature, freshly divorced welder at the site, falls for her with endearing grit and antics, warming Eula's stubborn heart. Dating Billy brings laughter to her home, but Cade's pull tears her anew. In a dimensional crisis with AI Elliot-whose name echoes her fever visions-Eula confronts infinite knowledge, struggling between loves.

"The River in me" is a Southern Gothic tale of psychic gifts, lost loves, redemption, and divine oneness, where the Ouachita runs eternal through one woman's soul.