Terry McDonald lives at the edge of the Snowy Mountains in eastern Australia. Her grandfather owns a large station at the head of the Murray River where it leaves those mountains to travel across a vast interior of mostly barren land.

Grandfather raised Terry on that station and it's her life. She's never been any further from home than the town of Albury. Work on a cattle station is a full time job and fills her days with purpose and satisfaction. Riding the hills and valleys of the upper Murray River is about as close to heaven as a person can get. She can't think of anything better than the rugged life of a jillaroo in the Australian outback.

When her workday ends, she climbs to the little graveyard up from the house. She talks to mom and tells her all about the exciting little things that happen each day. She doesn't talk to dad. He isn't in their cemetery. Terry doesn't know where he is. Nobody will talk about him, like it's some great secret. But that's a minor thorn in Terry's life because she has a loving grandfather and about anything else she might want.

But when everything you have is taken away, life can become devastating. Survival depends on being able to grasp something of substance. Terry has nothing. Only a vague wish to know who she is. Events beyond her control will send Terry to America, searching through the mists of time for a ghost she never knew.