Professor Callan Morrow finds a card with an intriguing insignia on the outside flap and a student's name on the inside, a student who suddenly disappears from class. When another student is found dead in a sweat lodge - possibly a hazing incident - the college president requests Callan, a former fraud examiner, to investigate on the college's behalf. But his interviews are met with answers shrouded in secrecy, lies, and fear. And then another student is murdered. Could his missing student be the next victim?
Callan suspects a college professor who has extreme ideological ideas on predicting the future through the study of constellations and ancient Native American mounds used to celebrate the equinoxes and solstices. Callan's investigation eventually leads him to a small town on the banks of the White River in Indiana, a town of ancient folklore, superstition, and spiritualism that becomes the focal point for the professor's celestial delusions.