When a mysterious pestilence hits the Hardbank coast and bodies start piling up, Shamus Washburn suspects witchcraft and he knows who to blame. He's hated Naxos ever since the affable lighthouse keeper arrived before the Civil War to tend the Hardbank Light. Feeding on fear, Shamus enlists a ragtag group of followers in his plan to kill Naxos and anyone else who tries to interfere. But the Hardbank Light is no ordinary lighthouse and Naxos is no ordinary lighthouse keeper - he is a Light Keeper, connected with the Source and endowed with powers and knowledge of an unseen world of Spirit. When he and Shamus collide they set in motion events the likes of which Hardbankers never could have imagined, giving those blinded by fear and vengeance one last chance to avoid disaster and move toward the Light. As a cast of unlikely characters arrive on the coast - a shipwrecked Yankee captain with a score to settle, an ex-slave who died in a storm but whose spirit continues its journey, a mystical root healer searching for the one things she knows can cure the pestilence before it's too late - the veil between the seen and unseen worlds is lifted and the last of the Light Keepers prepares to meet his destiny.