The lives of four people in Graham, Oklahoma, collide in the shadow of a monster tornado. The Reverend McIntosh, Mac, has lost his wife and his faith and is preparing to chuck his career. His 16-year-old daughter, Joy, is pregnant and desperate. Joy's grandfather, Jonas, plans to give his precious wife, Maggie, an overdose of sleeping pills to release her from the ravages of Alzheimer's. But everything changes for all of them when Mac encounters the strange, mystical Princess, a death-row inmate set for execution. Princess "knows things" she can't possibly know, and is determined to carry a secret about the little sister she murdered 14 years ago to her grave. On 11 May 1963, a Category 5 tornado roars across the plains toward Graham. All of the people who'd pencilled in death on their calendars for that day confront eternity, but none of them comes to the crossroads of life and death by the path they planned or leaves with the result they expected.