When Beth LaMonte rents a cottage on the coast of Maine, she wishes only to withdraw and paint. A mysterious ball of light disturbs her peace and leads her to a secret beach where she finds the diary of a girl who disappeared in 1975. Now Beth is on a mission, not only to bury her own past, but to put to rest the spirit of Firefly Beach.

Leonard Tramer’s time machine takes him nowhere near the past, but meddling with time destroys his future. When he steps out of the defective machine, he enters a totalitarian state which resembles East Germany more than the free world he left behind.