In Elizabethan York, young Nell Appleby is trapped in a chest, and a horror of the dark dogs her for the rest of her life. Wed to the sadistic Ralph Maskewe, Nell must find joy where she can, until her childhood sweetheart offers her escape to the New World. Four and a half centuries later, Tess moves to York, eager to start a new life, away from her overbearing husband. But time in York has a way of shifting strangely, and memories of a past that is not her own begin to surface ...