When Hatteras Island old-timer Iola Anne Poole passes away at ninety-one, the struggling young mother in her rental cottage finds herself charged with cleaning out Iola's rambling Victorian house. Running from a messy, dangerous past, Tandi Jo Reese expects to find no more than a temporary hiding place within Iola's walls. But all that changes when she discovers eighty-one carefully decorated prayer boxes, one for each year from Iola's youth to her last days.