Dana, a black woman, celebrates her birthday in 1976 only to be snatched from her home and transported to the antebellum South to save the white son of a plantation owner from drowning.
When Dana, a woman from the twentieth century, is brought back in time by her slave-owning ancestor, Rufus, when his life is endangered, she must save him in order to live out her own life in the future.
Dana is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Dana, who is Black, has been summoned to save Rufus, the White son of a plantation owner, who is drowning. She is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters and each time her stays grow longer and more dangerous. She begins to worry that her 21st century life is ending and she will be asked to live permanently in the 19th century as a slave.
