Four life stories that intertwine over centuries, in the middle of time and the middle of the world, on Tristan da Cunha, the most remote place on Earth, a tiny island in the ocean between Brazil, South Africa, and Antarctica. Noomi Morholt, 41, is traveling to Antarctica in January 2003 with a South African team of scientists to spend the winter in the encroaching darkness and conduct research on the aurora. Christian Reval, 49, a radio operator stationed on Tristan during World War II, who was the first to map the volcano and died in 1969 under unexplained circumstances while surveying a more southerly island. Edwin Heron Dodgson, 35, brother of the famous Lewis Carroll, a priest sent to evangelize the settlers on Tristan in the 19th century, begins an affair with a girl.