Melisande is only 11 years old when she finds her mother, a ballroom dancer, dead at the foot of the stairs in their North Carolina home. Melisande's memory of what happened that December night is foggy. As time goes by, the gap in her knowledge and the half-remembered images from childhood continue to haunt her. Finally, driven, she returns, years later, to the scene to discover more about who her mother was and to search for new clues to the mystery...