Once upon a time, an endless dust storm engulfed the world, stranding an itinerant circus in a time without purpose. One day, a high-wire walker, lured by a tune hidden in the wind, leaves the circus and finds the melody revealed in the shape of a mysterious fiddler waiting at the crossroads. The stranger presents her with an hourglass that can stop the wind, but only until the sand runs out. The wire-walker rejoins the show and, taking control of her fate, decides to walk the wire one last time.

Alice Ball, a 23 year-old African American Chemist living in 1915 Hawaii fights against racial and gender barriers to find an effective treatment for leprosy before Kalani, a 10-year-old patient is exiled into the leper colony of Molokai.