The love Ethan has for his wife, Jane is like a smooth, flowing river. His feelings for Callie, the girl who lives under their roof are like a fast moving creek, splashing over rocks and gullies. He hardly knows how to contain what he feels for her. Jane is dying and the crone who supplies her herbs has had a vision - a dark tower, a foaming sea - and a terrible act. In a misguided attempt to alter the fate of her young husband, Jane makes a desperate request of Callie.Callie of Wideopens is 18, the orphaned offspring of uncertain parentage and deemed unmarriageable. She consents to Jane's request and unwittingly sets in motion the crone's prophecy.Ethan and Callie's joining is as passionate and dark as their beginning, but the act unconsummated. Spurned and ashamed, Callie leaves Jane and Ethan's care. Independent for the first time, Callie is abducted by a highwayman, restores a fallen monk and is bought by a rapacious lord. Arrested on charges of witchcraft and sentenced to hang, she recounts her story from a tower cell just as the crone predicted, and Ethan is haunted by a girl he believes dead and a love that sprang out of sin.