Marnie, a newcomer to a remote fishing hamlet, finds the unsociable villagers wary of her, and her only friends are the village priest and the outcast youth Raver, named for his inhuman speech and sudden rages. Drawn together by their loneliness, Marnie offeres the mad youth friendship and shelter. She discovers the reason for his wild behavior and inability to talk: he is deaf. She makes up a language he can comprehend, using her hands, and Raver, renamed Raven, is transformed. But the villagers see Raven's transformation as the result of sorcery, and they accuse Marnie of witchcraft. It is the story of a young woman wrongly accused, yet guilty of just one thing - being different.