"Curing time" is tobacco's season of harvest, a time of transformation, when the leaf is made golden by subjection to fire and heat. Tobacco farmer Hume Rankin endures his own curing time in the summer of 1959. When the rains won't come and the crops wilt in the field, he solicits the magic of an old, blind black woman. She warns of the dangers of calling on the middle world and tells him once those spirits are unleashed, it is they who decide when and how the spell unfolds. Hume dismisses her warning, to his peril.When his life-long nemesis, Worth Baker, who has always had his eye on Hume's land as well as his wife, is found dead, all eyes are on Hume. He faces the all-too real possibility of losing his land, his family and even his life. Sitting in a jail cell, uncertain of his own innocence, he finds himself lost and a long way from home. Recalling the old woman's warning, he is haunted by the possibility that he may have played a part in his own demise.