Hollis Pride has just drowned in the rapids fishing, right below Harpers Ferry, West Virginia where the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers meet. As he watches the police pull his body from the rocks, a girl on the muddy riverbanks touches his arm and brings him to meet her dying grandmother; a woman who needs his eyes to see what death will be like, considering she's too afraid to look. Hollis obliges, giving her his eyes; in return, he's handed a candle, one that guides him as he makes his way home-and so begins the journey that unfolds over the next three days as Hollis meets more of the living in need of his body parts. Parts he gives away in return for something from the living, objects he gives to his wife to help her. He hasn't died the correct way, and the more body parts he gives away, the more difficult it is for him to ascend from the world of the living. His wife Nora also wants something: a child. It was the one thing Hollis was never able to provide her with in life, though now in death, they must both work in parallel worlds to find a child for Nora before he's forced to leave the living realm forever.