A team of four "time-jumpers" is being deployed 35,000 years into the past, tasked with a dual mission: to retrieve a Neanderthal child from Ice Age Europe, and to splinter Time itself. The four man team is being deployed with a device that will generate an alternate timeline if they manage to alter the course of pre-history; by somehow saving the Neanderthals from total extinction. The leader of this team was specifically engineered for this task. His handlers regard him and his three men as utterly expendable. Ugly Sister is the only daughter of The Family's dominant she. As the cold-time lingers longer than usual and fear of the Others dampens their hopes she comes to maturity. On the very night that she confronts Mother about her suitability to mate a great ember of a star bursts in the sky. Taking her adult name from this singular event Dawn Star sets off with The Family on a journey that will take them to the very mouth of the Water Dread. Will her vision save them or will they perish at the hands of the ever-encroaching Others?