After moving into a quaint Southern boardinghouse, Annie learns about a former tenant, David Stern, who retired to his room 40 years earlier and mysteriously disappeared. Curious about the fate of this quiet graduate student, Annie begins to delve into his past. Soon, David is appearing in her dreams, and then one night during a violent break-in, he literally emerges from the boardinghouse walls--an unchanged man of flesh and substance--in order to save her.