In 1620, a widowed surveyor is paid to design a grand house with no guest entrance. The woman responsible for feeding its construction workers proposes an inconvenient alternative, and their growing alliance turns an architectural commission into a battle over who deserves shelter.
When new machines replace a valley's scarecrows, the discarded figures assemble outside the grain office demanding useful work. A warehouse clerk and a practical seamstress must discover what the valley is afraid of before its newest workers begin protecting entirely the wrong things.