Even as a child Barbara was beautiful, but as her beauty grew, so did the affliction which shadowed it—she was becoming more and more deaf. Yet living in her silent world, she was proected from the knowledge which might otherwise have destroyed her—the secret of her own origins.

Each generation of the Mallen family has been cursed with a dramatic white streak in their jet-black hair. Barbara does not have the visible streak to identify her as a Mallen, but she has spent her life trying to forget her parentage - and the horrific circumstances behind her birth. When her triplets - the Mallen litter - were born, she hoped that it would herald a new beginning. But it seems that one of her sons bears the Mallen streak - and that the Mallen curse will never die out.