Quiet Abigail Kirk, aged fourteen, watches children on the Sydney estate where she lives, play 'Beatie Bow' - a frightening but compulsive game. She follows a strange looking girl who watches but never joins in. Suddenly Abigail is nearly run over by a Victorian cab. Unwittingly she has gone back in time, to 1873. For what reason? What is the Gift? Why can she not return to her own time until she has preserved its powers for future generations? Will the girl help her?