In 2010, Hester has recently married Paul and moved into the house he previously shared with his former wife Flo, located in a suburban Ohio neighborhood decimated by the real estate crash. Many of the houses stand empty, and Hester has encountered ghosts in some of them. Paul scoffs, but neighbor Chanti and husband Clay have seen them, too. Hester learns from them and others about violent deaths that have happened on this land that had once been a prosperous farm, killings involving people who seem strangely familiar. Chanti tracks down Millie, an old woman who appears to know what is going on. Millie tells her about a soul family of the five ancient elements: fire, air, water, earth, and the void. In each incarnation each member of the soul family can be either man or woman, husband or wife, brother or sister, father or daughter, mother or son, or totally unrelated, or any combination of these. No matter how they are incarnated, each generation the five souls are drawn together to carry out the violence they seem destined to commit. In this latest incarnation the gathering is complete when Paul's ex-wife Flo returns. Will they continue the age-old cycle of violence they seem doomed to commit? Or will this time be different, allowing the soul family to advance on its path to Nirvana?