When a beautiful tract of land in the mountains of North Carolina becomes available, Lucas Prescott and his wife Nancy, who is a Cherokee Indian, quickly buy it. It has everything, a high flat surface where a house can be built and a lovely mountain stream in a gorge behind it. As they wait to have a road built and the foundations of their house laid, they, along with five of their friends, camp out on what is to be the home site. Their next-door neighbor, Charles Collingsworth, visits them on their first day there, demanding that they leave at once—and is shocked when they tell him they’ve bought the land, which he hadn’t known was for sale. He offers to buy the land, and when they refuse he warns them about “dangers” in the mountains, and leaves. Exploring the land, the Prescotts and their friends find a deep spot in the stream, a pool very suitable for swimming, and take advantage of it. Down in the water they can see a faint iridescence, but it’s too deep to reach and remains a mystery. As their stay goes on, strange and frightening things begin to happen at night, but no one is harmed and they do not leave—they feel that they are unable to, even though the weird events at night seem threatening. In the daytime they continue to explore the area and discover a cave with human remains in it. Thinking these might be the remains of ancient Cherokees, they call in an expert from the museum in Cherokee, Dr. John Wafford—who quickly informs them that the remains are quite recent, and that their find needs to be investigated by the police, not by an archeologist. But they also ask him to take a look at the odd iridescence in the pool, and from there things take a completely unexpected turn…