Jane McQuarry knows Mr. and Mis’ MacFarland as the couple who work at a life saving station for sailors on the water even though Mis’ MacFarland does not like the sea and will not look at it. After their daughter dies, their young granddaughter Moira comes to live with them and Jane is asked to come take care of Moira once Mr. MacFarland also dies. The first thing that Jane notices is that Mis’ MacFarland is no longer afraid of the sea, and spends her time looking out at the ocean. Jane also notices the young Moira sit silently in a room and stare off into space with a dreamy look in her eyes. Jane asks Mis’ MacFarland about the occurrence and Mis’ MacFarland says that Moira taught her how to listen to the silence and notice everything around them that one cannot see. Jane later hears Mis’ MacFarland’s prayer and notices that she does not make a distinction between the living and the dead and that is the reason she is no longer grieving and no longer afraid of the sea. As the years go on and Moria approaches her teenage years, Jane becomes accustomed to the young girl's odd ways. Moira ends up making friends and existing relatively normally in the small town they live in, but she still slips into her quiet spells and goes out into the back country to “the other place,” as she begins to call the realm in which her mind wanders. Moira begins to bring a boy home named Kenneth and Jane can tell that the two are in love with each other. However, Kenneth is not used to the way Moria acts and when she slips into her dream-like states, he becomes worried for her. One night, the fog rolls in from the sea, and Moira begins to wander outside into the fog. Kenneth follows her and asks what she is doing and she says that there is someone else that she loves and she can feel him getting close. Kenneth is confused by what she is saying and thinks she is crazy so he leaves her. Moira tells Jane and Mis’ MacFarland that she is going to get on a boat that has just come into the harbor because she feels called to. As she walks out of the house Jane and Mis’ MacFarland watch as a few men come from the sea carrying a man on a gurney. Moira approaches the man on the gurney and unites with him, knowing he is the one that she is in love with. Jane and Mis’ MacFarland join her outside and Jane can tell he is dying, but also knows that these two are supposed to be with each other. Jane feels that the love the two have for each other is a pure and untarnished love. Moira cries and asks the man not to leave her, but he reassures her that he will not be too far away once he dies. As he dies, Moira understands what her grandmother does about the veil between life and death like the difference between one room and another.