Dr Maureen Cole, a physical anthropologist, has been called in to examine a mass grave discovered in New Mexico. The burial site contains only the shattered skulls of women and children. Appalled at the find, Dr Cole begins working to unravel the mystery of these deaths. But as she works, strange things begin to happen around her: little incidents at first, then her generator quits and she begins to hear tiny whisperings emanating from the plastic bags of bones. In nearby canyons, centuries before, a series of brutal murders has terrified the Katsinas people, and their chief wanders the canyon rim at night in search of the killer. Whatever separates the past and the present is growing perilously thin as a killer stalks victims in two different centuries.