A sixteen-year-old runaway, Ann Holmes, is an itinerant mushroom picker who lives in a tent. But on a November afternoon, in the foggy woods of North Fork, Washington, the Virgin comes to her, clear as day. Now, it is up Father Collins, a young priest new to North Fork, to impartially evaluate the veracity of Ann's sightings. But, as word spreads of Ann's claims to see the Virgin Mary, thousands, including the press, converge upon the declining logging town which becomes the site of a pilgrimage of the faithful and the desperate.