Seven-year-old Noel has not made a sound since birth. There's nothing wrong with him physically. Something was done to him. Barely surviving in backwoods poverty, he communicates with a small bell tethered to his wrist. Although he has no language, we use our own as we enter his mind and heart to experience what he sees, feels and thinks. He rings his bell to show his love for his father and teenage sister. It trembles in fear when his alcoholic and verbally and physically abusive mother assaults him or his sister with a belt. Noel seeks refuge in the peacefulness of the woods around him and the security of an enormous cave, with a narrow pathway adjacent to a bottomless pit. A man comes into the family's lives. When real trouble erupts and terrible forces confront them, his sister runs, Noel climbs into a box and his father shows up with a gun.