Bestseller author Mike Noonan is autographing his new release in a bookstore and his beloved wife, painter Jo Noonan, goes to a store on the other side of the street to buy a pregnancy test. When she is crossing the street back to the bookstore, a bus runs her over and she doesn't survive.
Grieving over her, Mike decides to go to the house by the Dark Score Lake in Maine that he inherited from his grandfather and Jo had spent much time repairing. Mike starts to drink and suspects that Jo might have betrayed him since his sperm count indicates that he is sterile.
In the isolated house, Mike has nightmares and believes that Jo is trying to contact him. He also has daydreams and ghostly visions of jazz singer Sara Tidwell in a local fair in 1939.
Mike stumbles in the town with Mattie and her daughter Kyra Devore and he discovers that powerful, mean Max Devore is disputing the custody of his granddaughter Kyra with Mattie; he further discovers that Dark Score Lake is cursed by a despicable action of Max's in 1939.
Mike decides to help Mattie against Max and to investigate further the mysterious curse.