It is Christmas in Harmony, Georgia and the residents are busy preparing for pageants and parties. But behind this festive atmosphere lurks a different cheer. Molly Stonehouse, visiting her step-aunts on Muscadine Hill, sees a pattern of intimidating events emerge--an elusive red-cloaked figure, footsteps in a church, rifle fire...and the arrival of a stranger in town who makes mystifying claims. Coming shortly after the sinister accident that killed her husband Ethan and friend Neil Fry, these events begin to tell a deadly tale. When Ethan and Neil were children, both promised never to divulge a fearful secret. Now Molly knows that among the mistletoe, the friends, the relative and the merrymaking, a terrible drama is unfolding.