Vicki wakes out of a dream just as the phone rings. She answers it and her father's housekeeper tells her that Jacob, her archaeologist father, has been killed just as she saw in her dream. She goes home to find out what has happened and old things begin to surface. And the village is in turmoil because Sylvie, her father's mistress, has capped the spring and the village is dying for lack of water. Vicki meets Merle again, her ex-lover from whom she ran away, and learns Jacob had found the village's famous 4000-year-old gold cup that he'd been searching obsessively for all his life. This re-awakened Sylvie's own grail-obsession. She and Jacob fought and now the cup has disappeared again. Vicki and Merle begin the hunt to retrieve it. Events are exacerbated by Vicki's resumed but still rocky relationship with Merle, and by the shadowy Owl Woman, the spirit-of-place, who has her own agenda. Vicki finds herself becoming this spirit … and the Owl Woman is wanting to settle old scores.
