Freshly single and thoroughly traumatised from the ordeals of breast cancer, Eleanor Mellett starts a new job as teacher in a remote mountain hamlet. It's peaceful. Almost too peaceful. And what's become of the previous teacher, the saintly Miss Barker who has disappeared abruptly under mysterious circumstances? And what's with all those locks on her front door? And what is that bus doing idling outside her house late at night? When the local priest tries to exorcise Eleanor of her 'cancer demon', he seems to have unleashed a host of other demons set to torment her. But it's the discovery of Miss Barker's body in the Pondage when things really start to go awry.