In the 1990s, in the small river town of Waketon, Illinois, during the crisp, sunny, colorful, warm days of Indian Summer, as the bright yellow and red-brown leaves begin to fall to the ground, a young woman grieves over the recent accidental death of her young daughter. She cannot be consoled, for she does not regard her daughter's death as an accident, and against her better judgment secretly plots against the neighbor who killed her.
Her husband, a local carpenter entrenched in his own anguish over their deceased daughter, while trying to lift his wife out of the emotional quagmire she has sunken into, while trying to become established into a new life, is suddenly confronted with the unalterable effect of his own past indiscretions when a former lover reappears, a psychotic woman whose death he witnessed ten years ago.
A tough, brooding woman comes to Waketon with a 12 year old boy in tow, on a midnight freight train. She is looking for someone very specific, someone she has deep blood ties to. She is morally corrupt, and older than most people can fathom.
The town sheriff searches for the identity of a drowned woman who has washed ashore at a pier near downtown Waketon, who then disappears.
Four children rescue and befriend an amnesiac boy who has mysteriously appeared in the local woods where apparitions of a little dead girl have been seen. One boy becomes determined to help release him from his unhappy predicament. But the price of that release will change all of them forever.