In fourteenth-century England, peasant girl Christine Carpenter is so attracted to a statue of the Virgin Mary that the local priest (who lusts after her) suggests she be walled up in the church as an anchoress, a holy woman with responsibility for blessing the villagers. But when the priest has Christine's mother tried as a witch, she digs herself out of her cell, a crime for which the punishment is death.
American teacher, Kate, takes a job at a remote Scottish estate, but soon becomes entangled in a dark family mystery involving the previous tutor, a guarded teen, and a tragic death that may not be what it seems. Inspired by true events.