A teenage girl, Jessica, befriends a teenage boy called Tom, who is bullied by a local gang. She is abused by Jack, who is both her neighbour and school teacher, and Tom is sexually abused by his father. Together they bond in the woods, creating a private reality that no-one else can enter.
We're in an English village shortly before Dunkirk. "Mr. Tom" Oakley still broods over the death of his wife and small son while he was away in the navy during WWI, and grief has made him a surly hermit. Now children evacuated from London are overwhelming volunteers to house them. Practically under protest, Mr. Tom takes in a painfully quiet 10-year-old, who gradually reveals big problems.
El profesor David Ash acude a Edbrook para calmar los temores de Tess, la niñera de los Mariell, que asegura ver cosas muy extrañas. Ash intenta convencerla de que son alucinaciones fruto del cansancio y el estrés; sin embargo, también él empieza a dudar de sus sentidos ante la anómala conducta de los tres hijos mayores de la familia.
