"Stormy" Enduring a lonely childhood, growing up in a mountain shack with negligent parents, Stormy Garrison learns to deal with hardships. Following her mother's desertion, and father's death, she is rescued by a long-lost sister who offers the teenager a new life, with a loving family. Years later, on an errand to the semi-ghost town of Shawnee, Ohio, to purchase an antique clock for her sister's anniversary, Stormy is fascinated by a secluded garden. While exploring "Elaine's Garden," she opens a hidden door, and is swept into the current of time, transported back to 1882 when the once-thriving town was caught up in a brutal conflict between coal mine owners, and striking miners. Failing to find the doorway to return home, Stormy relies on childhood memories to adjust to the harsh realities of living in this time. She meets, falls in love with, and marries Town Marshall, Beale Hunter. Hearing of his murder the morning after their wedding, Stormy is grief-stricken, faints, and mysteriously awakens in 2009 where she begins a struggle to rebuild her life without him. Uncertain whether these were actual memories, or all was a dream, Stormy repeatedly returns to Shawnee to visit Beale's grave, to search for a way to go back, to prevent his death. During a freak thunderstorm, three years later, Stormy, as helpless as a grain of sand flowing through an hourglass, once again drops backward into the stream of time.