It's 1926, and Irene Arden is happily married and living with her Swedish-Finn husband Karl Mattsson on his family farm in the beautiful, pastoral Independence Valley of western Washington. Irene adapts well to farm life and makes friends in the community. Sounds like paradise, but there is just one catch: Irene must live in the same house as Karl's mother, Agda, a weaver, and self-proclaimed " spider in the attic, weaving my woolly webs." Agda desperately tries to drive away her daughter-in-law, putting Karl in the middle between the two women. Eventually, Irene begins to investigate and question the circumstances of Karl's first wife's death, and whether her own fate might now be hanging in the balance.