Sixteen-year-old Tierney James has a dream about a girl with a strawberry birthmark on her face who gives an impassioned speech to a gathering of women. Tierney awakes on Veiling Day, the day before the grace year girls are sent into the woods to dispel their magic for one year. The men and boys will select their wives, and the girls who are not chosen will be sent to the labor houses after their grace year. Tierney’s mother is annoyed that her daughter hasn’t drawn the interest of any of the men thanks to her tomboyish behavior, and no one in Tierney’s family believes she will be given a veil. After all, there are “twelve eligible boys in Garner County this year” and “thirty-three girls” (8). Tierney is sent into town wearing her Veiling Day dress and a red ribbon to signify that she is a grace year girl, and she feels “exposed” and “vulnerable” as people stare at her (13).

Every year, the grace year girls leave for the woods full of life, and when they return a year later, they are often “emaciated, weary,” and “broken” (14).