Sixteen-year-old Leontyne Skye yearns to escape Good Hope, the remote Georgia coastal barrier island where she resides. Leontyne's heritage is bleak. Tasked with tending Damascus, an ancient fig tree beguiling haints across the river with its wind chime song, Leontyne's mother, Eulalee, disintegrates into tufts of hair, teeth, and memory. This affliction befalls all Skye women, a fatal consequence of distilling Redemption, an addictive drug made from the figs of Damascus imbued with the essence of haints. Leontyne also tumbles apart, her memories and hand lost in a life-altering accident suffered two years back during an event known as Tribulation Day. Through unreliable recollections of her trusted friends the Longwood twins, Leontyne stitches a dubious understanding of who she was before she fell "the long-long ways." In the aftermath of Eulalee's death, Leontyne is pressured by the Longwoods to render Redemption, continuing the legacy upon which Good Hope depends. When a handsome stranger arrives, relationships unravel as the Longwood twins battle to claim the stranger for themselves, derailing Leontyne's plans to escape Good Hope. Each moment Leontyne refuses Damascus, haints accumulate in menacing hordes. As Leontyne's memories return, everything she believes to be true is called into question, including the devastating events of Tribulation Day. Leontyne soon realizes her birthright extends beyond the business of making Redemption, while the acceptance of her destiny as the Great Redeemer threatens her very existence. Her refusal: irrevocably shattering the fragile balance between the living and the dead.