The narrative follows Rachel Dove, a young girl whose family travels in southern Africa and who becomes entangled with local legends, supernatural forces, and a mysterious curse that affects the land. After personal tragedy and ominous omens, her life intersects with diviners, a strange tree-worshipping people, and cryptic figures including Ishmael and Noie. Episodes alternate between scenes of domestic grief, visions and prophecies, and adventurous incursions into a city of the dead and sanctuaries where ghostly authority holds sway. Themes include colonial encounter, fate and spiritual power, loss and recovery, and the tension between rational Western belief and indigenous ritual, all rendered as a blend of romance, mysticism, and frontier adventure.