Christmas Eve finds Sophie Bennett—a timid orange cat with a knitted scarf and hidden scars—standing on the old river bridge as fireworks prepare to bloom. She has not spoken a word since her family brought her home from a remote “correctional school” three years after sending her away... But when the fireworks end, the river carries a secret to the surface—one that will shatter her family, expose a buried hell, and force a town to face the truth it tried to forget.