Claire wakes three times in the night. First, she is filled with grief. Second, she wakes in the throes of passion. Third, she wakes alone, her thoughts filled with the stones on Craigh na Dun. She thinks “no one knows the function or the purpose of the stones. Except me” (1).

Iverness, 1968. Roger Wakefield, a history professor at Oxford, is in Iverness, a city in the Highlands of Scotland. He is there to pack up the home of his deceased adoptive father, his biological uncle, the Reverend Mr. Reginald Wakefield. As he tries to decide where to begin, Claire and Brianna Randall arrive. Claire asks Roger to help her find out what happened to a list of men she believes fought at the battle of Culloden in 1746 during the Jacobite Uprising. She also asks what Roger knows about the Druids in the area. He remembers that his uncle’s previous housekeeper, Mrs. Graham, was part of a local Druid group, but Roger says she has since passed away. He adds that her granddaughter, Fiona, works at the manse currently.