"By the order of Wilhelm II, Emperor of the German Empire and King of Prussia, all male inhabitants of the Empire and its territories are hereby ordered to report for military duty according to the quotas so established."

When war broke out in 1914 no one was safe from impressment. In the villages of the Vosges life would forever change as soldiers dragged the men off to war and opportunists pounced on those who remained. Families torn apart by war fled their traditional homelands or starved to death. When the Great Pandemic swept the countryside, those who survived believed Heaven itself had fallen.

As the modern pandemic spreads across France, an obsessed author is racing against time to find the remains of Marianne Bouchard haunted by the peals from the village bell.