The late summer of 1922 in Europe has begun. Norman Roscoe Stonelock is a glassware shoppe owner in the small town of Rlyll, where enduring harassment from nosy investors is the least of his worries. The town is drenched in scandals of ongoing kidnappings, a massacre of swans, and a forgotten Avian Candidacy coming back to life. Late at night, things take an enormous turn when the last swan barrels into Norman's shoppe, and incidentally, his life.