A place of pilgrimage, retreat, and spiritual renewal, St. Sylvan's-at-Rest is, in its own way, a small paradise. And, as Deacon Theodora Braithwaite quickly discerns, this motley, irritable party of pilgrims is in urgent need of spiritual balm. But scarcely have they arrived when the calm is shattered by an act of symbolic violence -- which soon goes beyond the symbolic.