Ted Barton is trapped in a town that is not the Millgate, Virginia, he was born in. In this Millgate, Ted Barton died when he was five years old. Here figures of light and darkness stand in the sky at the edges of town, and golems and spiders walk abroad, clay figures brought to life under the fingers of two strange children. Is Ted Barton himself just such a puppet or simulacrum in some cosmic rivalry?