This poetry arises from dreams, spiritual experience and events. "In the moment before sleep, an old calling song everywhere the same, churches, tribal longhouses, poetry asks, "from where does my help come. Where is my help?"

If you were called by a dream, by spirits who live in the mountains, would you go? Even if it meant everything would change, including who you think you are? Ruby did. As a result she is taken on a journey by the Old Ones, creatures some people call Sasquatch. They lead her on an arduous journey with an unknown purpose, though they are clear that the need is urgent and Ruby's role essential. Ruby knows she is a door to the dream world. Now she learns that she is more. With help from her two sisters, and the elders of two tribes, Ruby must learn what, and who, to trust.

The Sanctuaries of the North Road are ancient places where sky and earth meet. They are also dangerous; no one enters uninvited, and few leave. The three sisters risk the road to keep the snake medicine safe from capture by the Lilin, a group almost as ancient as the medicine. But there are other reasons for the journey, reasons that Ruby, Grace and Agnes couldn't have guessed. In their faithfulness to the medicine and to each other rests the fate of the world.