Anthropologist Pamela Cavendish returns to her hometown carrying a wound from childhood: her friend Hans was abducted by something nightmarish, and no adult believed her. She and Hans's sister Agatha spent years trying to convince people of what they had witnessed, until time and doubt wore away their certainty and they accepted that Hans was probably dead. Then Pamela receives a letter from Agatha. Hans made contact recently. He is still alive. Pamela goes back to the town of Mittenwald to finally close what has remained open for all these years — a town that has been quiet for a long time, and where the boundary between dreams and reality turns out to be less stable than it appears. Something in the shadows has been watching every step she takes.