Liffey Rivers' world is changed forever when she begins meditating daily on the ground between the two old ginkgo trees in her backyard. Voices coming from underneath her, earth tremors, the discovery of an ancient Native American effigy, a mysterious Catholic nun in a white habit floating above her like wispy smoke from a chimney. Almost extinct box turtles are in her yard everyday and there is a mysterious air quality problem in Mineral Point with no apparent cause. When high school students are terrorized by what appears to be a vampire, waiting for their school bus early one morning, the Chief of Police becomes involved and discovers that a threatening poem, a box turtle and a warning of retribution written in Japanese, has been deposited in The Foundry Books' pagoda-like haiku box on the bookstore's front porch. Liffey Rivers soon realizes that she is facing an unimaginable crisis in what has, up until now, been a safe place to live and hide.