When Grace Chantry moves back to her small hometown of Tarn Junction, she's lost everything from her big-city life except the one thing she's kept secret: her selectively mute foster daughter, Synia, who is withdrawn from everyone ----everyone it seems, except an eccentric local recluse, Ida Cale. Struggling against the town's disapproval, together Ida and Grace set out to help Synia find her words. But will Ida's strange ways be enough to pull the child from her darkness and save both Synia and Grace from themselves