Two women separated by time must confront a wickedness that challenges who they are, and those they love. Wren Blythe has long enjoyed helping her father with programming at a youth camp in the Northwoods. When a little girl in the area goes missing, an all-out search revives the decades-old campfire story of Ava Coons, the murderess, who still roams the woods. Joining the search, Wren stumbles upon the Coons cabin ruins and a rotting porcelain doll--with her own name etched on the doll's foot. In the 1920's eight-year-old Ava Coons emerged from the Wisconsin forest spattered with blood, dragging a logger's axe. She has accepted she'll never remember what happened to her family. When a member of the town of Tempter's Creek is murdered in 1930, rumors spread that Ava's secret is more malicious than previously imagined. -- Adapted from back cover.