Claire McKay (Julia Brendler)—having suffered the death of her boyfriend—is brought by her mother to Ironbound Island in the hopes that time away from the city will allow her to recover emotionally. On the island where her mother was born, Claire meets an eccentric writer, Celia (Lynn Redgrave), who in flashbacks, relates her own story as a grief-stricken teenager in 1949. Celia—Silly (Kirsten Dunst) in the flashbacks—is the next chosen victim of a Viking curse which was placed on the island centuries ago when their longship sank in the bay.