Her great-aunt's stories were the gateway to a mystery-she claimed to have taught at a school on an island, situated in the heart of the Los Angeles harbor. She described a Japanese fishing village complete with shops, a church, a temple, and a small elementary school.



But the village was gone, and no one seemed to know anything about it. Twenty-two years after the death of her Aunt Lucile, Maggie Shelton was given a small cardboard box. In it were treasures from 70 years before-evidence, at last, that her aunt's stories were true. But instead of solving the mystery, the contents posed deeper and darker questions than before. Who had destroyed this village, leaving not a trace of the 500 homes and 3,000 people who had lived there? Why was it a secret? And where were the children whose sweet faces looked out from the photos her great-aunt had kept in the box?

The contents of that box led Maggie on a journey that ended with the discovery of a treasure her great-aunt had found two generations before her.