1917. On a battlefield near the River Aisne, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs, lost to memory as the snow falls. 1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and tries to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures, ghosts with messages he cannot understand.