In the woods they lay, sleeping in shadow, far from the light When her friend Maureen dies, seventeen-year-old Nell Brannerly flees the tavern where she's been trapped for years, taking with her Maureen's young son, Eben On the lonely road to Bellayne where Eben's father lives, Nell's past comes back to haunt her. She realises she must uncover the secrets surrounding the deaths of her mother and master, so that she can throw off the cloak of despair that's smothered her ever since. In the woods near Bellayne, Nell and Eben stumble across a buried body. Nell is horrified to learn at the local inn that girls have been disappearing from the town, and that Eben's father, Jack Lea, seems to be involved. After Eben's life is threatened and an eerie encounter with a ghost-girl, Nell must find the killer herself before she's permanently stopped from delving too deeply into the secrets among the townsfolk and the Greenfriars of St Clement's. Nell is forced to confront her own mortality and she is touched by the strange forces moving beyond what she can see in the physical world. She begins to see herself - and life itself - in a new light. Their cries stir the night … Hush! Can you hear them? Will you come?