Protagonist visits her parents' graves on a long drive, standing over their plot and touching the grass above their remains.

Protagonist arrives at the desolate abbey in the Monaro Plains and is introduced to Sister Simone, who runs the community.

Relaxing in her cabin, the protagonist receives a text from her husband Alex confirming he has landed at Heathrow Airport.

Attending Vespers for the first time, the protagonist finds the singing enchanting but the words railing against God's enemies deeply troubling.

Unsettled by her growing comfort at the abbey, the protagonist decides to leave and begins packing her belongings.

After many return visits over the years, the protagonist moves permanently to the abbey and takes charge of the garden and meals.

Sister Simone interrupts the protagonist's garden work to quietly tell Sister Bonaventure that someone has finally been found.

Simone and Bonaventure explain that Sister Jenny vanished in Bangkok after confronting a priest who had assaulted his housekeeper.

Heavy rainfall uncovers bones beneath a tree and DNA confirms them as Sister Jenny's remains, now en route to the abbey.

Sister Simone announces to the community that Jenny's remains will arrive accompanied by the famous activist nun Sister Helen Parry.

A hearse arrives at the abbey and men in surgical masks carry Sister Jenny's casket into the good room.

Helen Parry arrives at the abbey in plain clothes, looking directly through a window at the protagonist without any sign of recognition.

At a rare communal dinner, Helen Parry admits to the gathered sisters that she also came to the abbey to visit her dying mother.

Sister Simone announces they will bury Sister Jenny in the Stone Yard paddock without waiting for government permission.

Sister Jenny is buried in the Stone Yard paddock and Helen packs her car and drives away before the protagonist returns to the abbey.

A burned-out environmental worker abandons her life to take refuge at a remote abbey in her Australian hometown, unsure whether she will stay. After five days she departs, but she is drawn back repeatedly until she moves in permanently and takes charge of cooking and gardening. The community is upended when the long-lost bones of Sister Jenny — a nun who vanished in Bangkok after confronting a priest about assault — are recovered and sent home. The remains arrive accompanied by the controversial activist nun Sister Helen Parry, whose presence unsettles both the protagonist and the community. A plague of mice overwhelms the abbey while COVID-19 travel restrictions delay Sister Jenny's burial and tension mounts. Finally defying local authorities, the community buries Jenny in the Stone Yard paddock, and Helen drives away before the protagonist has even returned from the graveside.

The key events driving the protagonist from her first retreat to the burial of Sister Jenny.

At Lauds on her second morning at the abbey, the protagonist is overwhelmed by an unexpected and powerful emotional upheaval.

Following the sisters through a morning service on the fourth day, the protagonist takes communion for the first time since childhood.

Before departing the abbey, the protagonist stands still and watches a lyrebird that does not notice her presence.

On the final drive to the abbey to stay permanently, the protagonist leaves a pot of succulents at her parents' graves.

Finding a frost-killed chick in the henhouse, the protagonist buries the tiny body and thinks of babies buried by the Catholic Church.

For two consecutive nights the protagonist hears someone playing the abbey piano long after everyone should be asleep.

Simone and the protagonist open the piano lid and discover a mouse nest inside, prompting the community to begin killing mice.

Richard Gittens arrives at the abbey with mouse traps and warns the protagonist that the infestation will become a full-scale plague.

Mice infest every room of the abbey but mysteriously avoid the good room reserved for Sister Jenny's remains.

Richard Gittens uses a mini excavator to dig a pit near the abbey and brings lime to cover the mounting pile of mouse corpses.

Sister Sissy tells the protagonist that Sister Carmel abandoned her two teenage children to join the abbey, horrifying the protagonist.

Word reaches the abbey that a local farmer has killed himself in his truck, leaving a note instructing someone to call the police.

Seeing Richard Gittens's wife Annette looking discontent in the street, the protagonist feels a rare and settling sense of freedom about her own life.

With the mice destroying kitchen supplies, a guest cabin is converted into a locked storeroom to keep the community's food safe.

Weeks after Sister Jenny's burial, the rains finally stop and the plague of mice comes to an end.

Alongside the main plot, the protagonist's first visit is marked by emotionally powerful moments at morning and evening services, ending with a quiet farewell to a lyrebird that does not notice her. When she returns to stay permanently, she settles into new domestic rhythms — burying a frost-killed chick, hearing mysterious piano music at night — before a mouse nest is discovered and the community's war against a full-scale plague begins. Richard Gittens becomes an unlikely ally, bringing traps, advice, and eventually an excavator to manage the mounting corpses. The sisters face difficult truths about their own community, including the revelation that Sister Carmel abandoned her teenage children to join the abbey. News from the outside world intrudes through the death of a local farmer, and a chance encounter in town gives the protagonist a clear-eyed moment of gratitude for the unconventional life she has chosen.

Daily life, the mice plague, and small moments of revelation at the abbey.

At a group scripture reading on her third day, the protagonist recognises one of the other guests as her former high school classmate Richard Gittens.

When their teacher steps out of sewing class, the protagonist and her classmates beat Helen Parry; the returning headmaster sides with the attackers.

At a protest in the forest as adults, the protagonist apologises to Helen Parry for the attack in high school, but Helen refuses to forgive her.

When the protagonist mentions Helen Parry to Richard Gittens, he has no memory of her whatsoever, leaving the protagonist feeling a strange, exhausted loneliness.

After a nightmare, the protagonist swims alone in the abbey dam; Helen Parry arrives soon after and floats in exactly the same way.

Helen Parry joins the protagonist on a morning run but keeps running past the gate when the protagonist turns back toward the abbey.

Sister Bonaventure reveals her vigil over Jenny's remains stems from a bitter unresolved fight, and that she seeks forgiveness within herself rather than from Jenny.

Helen Parry admits to the community that she came not only to deliver Jenny's remains but also to visit her dying mother.

The protagonist finds the peaceful dove she once rescued from the church lying dead inside, its face chewed off by mice.

Helen asks the protagonist about Helen's mother, and the protagonist recalls that the whole town, including her own generous mother, never helped the woman.

Helen asks the protagonist to drive her into town, where Helen secures a flight out of the country for the following week.

Helen directs the protagonist to stop at their old high school and then at Helen's isolated, run-down childhood home.

Parked outside the hospital, the protagonist realises the mental health wing is where Helen's mother was hospitalised throughout most of Helen's teenage years.

After visiting her mother at the aged care center, Helen tells the protagonist that her mother tried, as best she could, to love her.

During Sister Jenny's burial prayers, the protagonist silently hopes for Helen's forgiveness, then watches Helen pack her car and leave the abbey.

This pool follows the emotional undercurrents that drive the story, beginning with the protagonist quietly recognising a ghost from her past at a scripture session during her first visit. The heaviest of her burdens is her guilt over leading a high school attack on Helen Parry, a guilt made worse when an adult attempt to apologise was coldly refused. Helen's arrival at the abbey forces the protagonist to see her former classmate with new eyes, a process that deepens through small shared moments, including a silent swim in the same dark water. Key revelations then reframe the entire story: Sister Bonaventure's grief stems from anger she cannot release toward the dead, and Helen's apparent coldness turns out to be the hard-won armour of a woman who spent her life protecting a mentally ill mother the entire town had abandoned. The burial of Sister Jenny draws the protagonist and Helen into a final, wordless understanding that falls just short of the forgiveness the protagonist has long sought.