As the small, religious community ruled by the sadistic Brother Joseph Jones braces for a coming ice storm, a battered, beaten Macie Jones hovers between life and death. Cooter James, a former POW, discovers Macie's freezing body and must make a decision: try to save the woman he has found or continue to ignore the happenings in the village below and maintain his hermit like existence. His decision made, Macie lies comatose in Cooter's cabin and discovers that she has opened the veil between the living and dead of the brutal, patriarchal community. Through her, the women and children that suffered before her have found a way to repay their own brand of vengeance on the men who treated them so brutally in the name of God. In the dreamtime, Macie must make her own decision: help the women with their plans of revenge or try to prevent any further death and pain. This novella contains graphic violence and would be rated "R" if it were a motion picture.