"Caitlin Ober is back in Japan, teaching English in remote Kagoshima, opposite increasingly active volcano Sakurajima. Beneath ominous clouds of ash, Caitlin travels her school rounds with waning enthusiasm. After hours she swims intently, hangs with a group of windsurfers, and attempts to keep her boyfriend, Hiroshi, at bay. She concocts lies and self-deceptions to prevent a tragic childhood incident in Kyoto from intruding on her present.

But, like the ash that veils the city, guilt obscures her path.".

"Then, in an ash-coated garden, Caitlin encounters a half-Japanese teenager, Naomi, wrangling with her double identity. Naomi seems to require Caitlin's recue, and by degrees the two swap morsels of self-truths. Ultimately they travel to Kyoto during the summer festival of O-Bon, when the spirits of the dead revisit the living. There, amid bonfires, temple rites, and ghostly memories, Caitlin bravely begins to embrace her future."--BOOK JACKET.