Joelle doesn't know much about her life before she was found, a scrawny, five-year-old, left alone at a railway depot.
She doesn't like to be asked about it, either. But when Carlos, a weird kid in the back of her Spanish class, who collects arrowheads and knows all about Native American history, tells her she looks just like a girl in a painting of Rhode Island's Narrangansett Indians, Joelle can't help sneaking a look at it.
Surprised by a flicker of recognition, she finds herself being drawn in by Carlos' stories. And it's Carlos who leads her through the forest to the ancient Crying Rocks, where howls on windy days are said to be the spirit voices of children from long ago, flung to their death from the rocks.
The terrible legend sparks memories for Joelle - of a window, her shadowy mother and a freight train escape from Chicago - and connects her at last to her lost past and people . . .
