One person can make all the difference. Miss Lily Moffat arrives in rural North Wales, determined to help young local miners out of poverty by teaching them to read and write. Lily soon spots talent in the unruly Morgan Evans, but when she faces growing resistance from the community, she does everything in her power to forge him a new future.

A mysterious — and suspicious — run of ill fortune plagues a teenage girl and her mother and sister on their hillside farm in this folk story set in the dark hills of Wales during the industrial revolution.