Even her husband Mike, a history professor in London who'd wanted something less isolated, had to admit that the ancient cottage had a soothing effect on his troubled young wife.

But they began to feel that it wasn't random chance that brought them to restore Bagstone Farm. And when an old man called Ferney befriended Gally, they couldn't know their lives would be forever changed.

He seemed an ordinary old man, harmless, really, a local who could tell them all about the history of the house and its surrounding countryside. But their marriage is strained to the breaking point as Gally becomes lost in Ferney's stories about the rich past of Bagstone Farm and Penselwood, that all at once seem so personal. How could she be growing so attached to a virtual stranger? And why did Ferney seem to know her better than she knew herself...the secret fears that plagued her, the nightmares she couldn't bear to confront?