Lib Wright, a young English nurse trained by the legendary Florence Nightingale, arrives in an impoverished Irish village with a strange mission. Eleven-year-old Anna O'Donnell is said to have eaten nothing for four months. With tourists thronging to see the child, and the press sowing doubt, the baffled community looks to an outside to bring the truth to light. Lib's job is simple: to stay in the girl's bare room at all hours, watching her.