On the Virginia plantation Poplar Ridge, seven-year-old Sarah witnesses the murder of her father Geoff Cameron. Sarah refuses to speak, and drawings of her father's death become her only means of communication--until she reveals that Geoff continues to read her stories. Are the ghostly whispers a figment of a bereaved little girl's imagination, or can Sarah really speak to the dead? The search for answers leads Sarah's mother, Chris, on a whirlwind journey through time. In the age of Reconstruction, Chris must unravel the web that binds Geoff's murder to the violent demise of his ancestor George Cameron. She leaves a diary for Geoff, hoping to break the chain of tragic events, only to find that Sarah holds the link between the worlds of the living and the dead.