How do you fight what no longer exists? When Jaclyn Hart's brother mysteriously disappears while working for a logging company, she joins a seven-day guided tour to learn what really happened. Strange things start occurring in this northern rainforest: group members disappear while others exhibit alarming personality changes. Worse, an ominous thumping noise emanates throughout the forest, growing more forceful as the group gets closer to its spiritual center. Dean Stockton is on his own quest. Although he'd sworn never again to set foot in the Stein, he is fulfilling a deathbed promise to teach a young orphan, Jesse Littlefoot, his Native heritage, and the two embark on a journey that pits them against an eddy of outside forces: governmental and corporate greed, the desecration of the rainforest, and a primeval power that threatens to claim Jesse as its own. As Dean and Jackie team up to save Jesse, they find themselves fighting for their own survival, and uncover some alarming ancient secrets that lay in the center of the Stein.