In a small prairie school in 1929 Connie Flood helps a backward student Michael Graves learn how to read Observing them and darkening their lives is the principal Parley Burns whose strange behaviour culminates in an attack so disturbing its repercussions continue to the present day Connies niece Anne tells the story Impelled by curiosity about her dynamic adventurous aunt and her more conventional mother she revisits Connies past and her mothers broken childhood In the process she unravels the enigma of Parley Burns and the mysterious and unrelated deaths of two young girls