A modern girl moves to a new school and is bullied. She throws a page from her journal into a hollow tree, and a monk from medieval England receives it. They begin a correspondence through time to help each other.

Eight-year-old Cal desperately craves attention from her childish father, and is prone to running away. John is a lonely widower whose life is filled with fear. When they meet one weekend in the shining woods of New England, their lives change forever.