Ellen Masters' family has a history-distillers of brandy and owners of the second entrance to Cumberland Cave. In this mind bending narrative, Ellen tells the story of growing up with one foot rooted in the town's woodlands, and another as an adult who inherits the family property connected to the cave. She begins her own family there, as a professor at the university, with a husband who is deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. After three students are murdered near her home, Ellen's fears intensify as she suspects a connection to the murders, and she begins to unravel the mysteries of not only that place, but also her mind. This is a Southern town populated by a watery, haunted landscape and family histories that become legends. In this page-turning novel, Ellen runs from her past and toward the unknowable. She fumbles through online meetings and Skype calls to her husband from a warzone, and all the while, she searches for an explanation to her world and yearns for a connection with her husband and family.