The tale begins with Agnes. After losing her baby, Agnes is called to the great manor house to nurse the local lord’s baby boy. But something is wrong with the child: his nails grow too fast, his skin smells of soil and his eyes remind her of the dark forest. As he grows into a boy, then into man, a plague seems to follow him everywhere. The man takes a wife, who bears him a son. But tragedy strikes in cycles and his family is forced to consider their own malignancy --- until wife after wife, death after death, plague after plague, every woman he touches becomes a ghost. The ghosts can all agree on one thing, an inescapable truth about this man, this powerful lord who has loved them and led them each to ruin: If you leave, you die. But if you die, you stay.