Beth Teller, one of the story’s two narrators, introduces herself and her father, Michael. Beth and Michael are in a remote Australian town to investigate a fire and a suspicious death. After dying in a recent car accident just before her 16th birthday, Beth is now a ghost, and so far, only Michael can see and hear her. Although Michael is white, Beth’s long-deceased mother was Aboriginal, and Beth identifies herself as Aboriginal. Her mother’s sisters, Aunty Viv and Aunty June, always told Beth that her mother was waiting for her “on another side” (5), and that someday Beth would see her mother again, but so far, Beth has not encountered her mother in the afterlife. Still, Beth has faith that they will be reunited at some point. She can wait patiently because she understands time from an Aboriginal perspective; her sense of moving forward is not dependent on the measurement of time but on making successful connections and relationships.

Beth wants her father, a police-investigator, to take an interest in the mystery of the fire because she is worried about his grief over her death. Michael has withdrawn from the rest of the family and is not taking care of himself.