1885. A ten year old boy is missing. His twin sister encounters a strange old man in the woods near her house. He seems infatuated with her, and displays unusual control over the world around him, over the events to follow in her life. She is Michelle Augustine, and from this day to her adulthood, the turn of the century, to Australian Federation, from poverty to comfort, love to loneliness, violence to peace and all the passion, joy, death and destruction her life will influence he and his sinister connection to her will never be far behind.