Agnes Sullivan is fifteen when her young brother Tom finds her crying in the lane, attacked and abandoned. Heartbroke, Aggie is forced to leave her home and family, and Tom, barely a teenager himself, decides the attacker must pay fro his actions. Aggie flees to Brimingham, but the safe she's been promised turns out to be too dangerous to stay in. She's left with few options until someone she would never have spoken to in her former life gives her the help she so desperately needs - but will World War One ruin her precarious hopes for the future?