Alice, a college Professor of Comparative Religious Studies, meets an enigmatic older woman who roams the campus, sleeps under a bridge, and rattles her with disturbing insights that forever alters the course of her existence.

"Drowned in your waters, swept away by your storms, laid bare on your rocky shores -- my corpse ravaged by a murder of crows. I am yours to do with as you will. Phantom Queen, Great Queen, where will you take me today?"