Summary

The novel begins in the summer of 1989 in a small town in Barbados called Bird hill. Dionne Braithwaite, a 16 year-old girl, and her 10 year-old sister, Phaedra, have recently been relocated from their mother, Avril, and their home in Brooklyn, New York and placed in the care of their grandmother, Hyacinth. The two girls find themselves in a graveyard attached to the Bird Hill Church with two local brothers, Trevor and Christopher Loving. Dionne and Trevor are off on their own in the graveyard, observing the grave of Dionne’s great-grandmother, when Trevor begins to slide his hand up under Dionne’s skirt, but she stops his hand before he can get too far.

Meanwhile, Phaedra and Chris play tag among the graves of children who died in the 1955 cholera outbreak. The move to Barbados has been a difficult adjustment for Phaedra, who...