Perhaps Donald Michael MacDonald invented the round mile, all 2,240 yards of it. Donald and his seven cows, walking the same steps each day through the past and the future, the fairy knoll and the poison pool, the eternal truths and the unknowable possibilities. Rarely does Donald venture beyond the round mile, for he has no need to: all of history can be found on his land.

Yet the wind farms, the spaceport, and the American billionaire with his Big House all threaten the peace Donald has cultivated and guarded as fiercely as he protects his animals. He loses a part of himself – and most of his herd – before an unexpected old friend helps Donald and his seven cows to reclaim their path, even as their island is transformed by a new age.