Fidelma of Cashel and her beloved companion Brother Eadulf have one final journey to make before returning to Ireland. Invited to Aldred's Abbey, where Eadulf's childhood friend Brother Botulf is steward, they arrive at midnight on the old pagan festival of Yule to find Botulf dead-his head caved in by a blunt instrument. As Fidelma and Eadulf soon learn, murder isn't the only danger facing those in the abbey. The ghost of a young woman haunts the cloister shadows, a ghost closely resembling the Abbot's dead wife. It will require all of Fidelma's skill as an advocate of the Brehon Courts to uncover the truth-before the abbey's secrets take yet another life.