Jane Moone is hired to identify the witch who cursed a sheep. But her client, Kate Grazier, has already decided who did it — Dorcas Whiting, the hedge witch who happens to be Jane's father's sweetheart. Dorcas would never harm an innocent sheep and everyone knows it, but she's arrested before Jane can credit the accusation. Now she has to persuade the poorest farmers in the district — Dorcas's patients — to stand before the magistrate in Greenslade Hall and testify on the witch's behalf.

As if that weren't enough trouble for one week, Jane hears stories about another old witch. She's begging at kitchen doors and walking away angry as often as not. She flings curses everywhere she goes, most of them missing their mark. But some are truly dangerous.

Jane and her father, a powerful wizard, must peer into the heart of a near-fatal curse and find the wandering witch before an innocent dies.