In 1959, under the shade of an Oak tree, Carolyn Calvert got baptized in an Indiana creek, and came up from the water damned instead of saved. That same night, her sister Colleen found her in the church basement and promised, against her better judgment, to keep Carolyn's secret. Two years later, when Carolyn's parents and lover try to force her into a marriage with her abuser, Carolyn again turns to her sister for help. This time, Colleen betrays her, implying that maybe she asked her it, and maybe the decent Christian thing to do is get married. Fearing for her and her unborn child's future, she flees to the sanctuary of the Grant Brother's Funeral Home, tucked in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. In 2013, Willie is a recent college grad with a useless writing degree, forty-grand in debt, and no job offers. Forced to move back home to Parke County, Indiana, she finds a little house in Judson to rent. It's sat empty for years; every appliance is a fire hazard, and it smells like mothballs and dust. But the rent is just right for a girl working two part-time minimum wage jobs. Then Willie's dreams start: a teenage girl in a white dress, standing in a creek, pointing to an Oak tree. Willie finds herself haunted by this girl, and when she finds journals and photo albums in the attic, her phantom takes on flesh. Willie is determined to find out who the creek girl is and what happened to her. With the help of Morgan, whom she's loved since she was 13, and his five-year-old daughter Tara, Willie traces Carolyn's story from a Parke County creek to a small plot in the Grant Brother's cemetery.