When Elinor's daughter, Rowena, is found poisoned and dead in an animal trough, Elinor is sure the local parish priest is to blame.A ceramic artist by trade and influenced by her late grandmother's interest in supernatural magic, Elinor crafts an immortelle for Rowena's grave and attempts to capture the girl's spirit in the clay model of a starling. Soon she is inundated with requests for immortelles and the more immersed in the craft she becomes, the greater her powers grow.As the dead share their secrets with grieving Elinor, she learns the sordid truth of what happened to her beloved daughter and plots a revenge so hideous, it must be kept a secret forever.