George Grieves has just turned 40 and is being checked into Mt. Abaddon Hospital for a routine colonoscopy. The procedure goes wrong when charts are mixed up and the doctors make mistakes. Now, George is struggling against the nursing staff, cold hospital lawyers, an oddly distant family. To make matter worse, a formlessly sinister forces prowls the halls of the East Wing, which is currently under construction.

The story of a young slave girl and the man who, at great risk to each other, teaches her to read, opening up a whole new world for her.