Key to this mystery and its solution are a spirit circle of psychics operating through the local Unitarian parish; like their spiritualist ancestors they attempt to solve the mystery of the bog couple through psychic means combined with historical research. History recapitulates itself age after age; and as the ancient wisdom warns: the sins of the fathers will be visited upon the children. Yet carrying on in the old way of hard scrabble Yankees, these citizens of Marktree muster up like the Minutemen of old, and press on through the round of four seasons into an uncertain, but perhaps redeemable, way of life.