"It IS you, though, only you just don't look the way I thought you would. But it's the right name."
James Rayburn, Rector of Saint Luke's, faces various challenges as Christmas approaches. These include a sense of his own weakening faith, unhappy memories and what to say in his Christmas sermon.
But Rayburn is to be distracted by the arrival at his house, one wintry night, of a sick, exhausted and seemingly destitute teenage girl called Corrie.
"Only now did the chill in her body and the aching in her legs take their toll, for only now did the unthinkable terror that 'they' might catch her take hold - catch her before she could complete her mission."
Who is this mysterious Corrie? Who is the mysterious person called Standerd who has apparently followed her?
"I dunno whatever made you think you could hide from me, Corrie, cos I said I'd find you, and I trusted you with a secret."
Clearly, she will need time to adjust before she begins to confide in James Rayburn as she recovers in the safety of the rectory. But by then, Corrie's journey has led her to meetings with others in the narrative, including Kate Raynor, the Dowling family and several of the rector's friends and colleagues. That journey, and the road she takes, "with its demanding, relentless highway" are ever before us as we come at last to Christmas Night.
