When Olivia's mother dies and her grave is dug in the back garden of the family home, the skeleton of a seventeenth-century woman is uncovered beneath the layers of Cheshire clay. The remains are crushed the neck broken and the bones fragile and decayed. But one thing remains intact - a scold's bridle. Only when Olivia delves back into history to unearth the story of this silenced woman does she begin to understand her own passions.