In the titular novella, a Pennsylvania academic discovers a terrifying trauma from her past after inheriting a house in Cardiff, Maine from someone she has never heard of. In ´Miao Dao´, a pubescent girl overcome with loneliness befriends a feral cat that becomes her protector from the increasingly aggressive males that surround her. A brilliant but shy college sophomore realizes she is pregnant and, distraught, allows a distinguished visiting professor to take her under his wing in ´Phantomwise: 1972´. And in ´The Surviving Child´, a widower remarries, but his young wife is haunted by his dead wife´s voice dancing in the wind...