In 1999, urban spelunker Brittany Loughry has a paranormal encounter while trespassing in the Weston Hospital. Desperate to continue investigating the shuttered asylum, Brittany blackmails local law enforcement, who are themselves under investigation for crimes within the facility. What Brittany finds inside is a kinship that transcends time and spirit.

Joining Brittany in the era-spanning story is Henrietta Tidewater, a Black patient falsely detained in 1905; Eugene Spangold, a depression-era farmer who self-commits with grand delusions of arson; and Neil Hutchence, an adrift divorcee in the current century gathering information for a friend's true-crime manuscript.

The braided stories meditate on love, melancholy, and the threads of individual legacies that weave a future for everyone.