Alex has never known her father. He left when she was born, leaving her mother and her Aunt Francine and her grandfather to take care of her. She was especially close to her grandfather all of her life. He was a spiritual man, speaking like the Native Americans did of the spirits in the land and its objects. Then he died, leaving Alex lonely, although he still visits her in the very vivid dreams she has.
Shortly after she turns seventeen, Alex finds out that the father she never knew has died. Furthermore, he has left her seventeen thousand dollars and a piece of land near a lake with a cabin on it.
Lonny lives with his stepfather on the land next to Alex' cabin. His stepfather usd to own the land Alex's father bought, and was disappoined when Lonny didn't seem to want it. He has bad feelings about the land, though. His mother died years before, and Lonny still thinks it was his fault, for digging up the bones of ancient Native Americans from a burial mound close to Alex's cabin. He also has strange dreams like Alex, dreams in which the Native Americans from the burial mound come out of the ground again.
In the middle of the summer, Alex finally comes to the cabin, to live there alone for a week and try to come to terms with her father's death and the fact that although she never met him, he left her this land. Lonny also has issues of his own to work out. Will the two of them be able to help each other?
I liked the parallelism of Lonny's and Alex's lives, especially the relationship each of them had with his or her single parent. I sometimes found myself lost in the story, though. It wasn't always clear what was a vision or a dream and what was reality, to I had trouble sorting out the plot sometimes.
