MacGregor is desperate to return home. Unfortunately, he's stranded in the Gulf of Darién, during independent Scotland's doomed two-year attempt at colonisation at the end of the 17th century. Worse still, he's a character in a novel whose author is dying, and he's running out of time. As the author's preoccupations, memories, and spiralling thoughts start to pollute MacGregor's world, he finds his narrative eroding and his escape routes blocked. Desperately clinging to hope, MacGregor is determined to keep his Creator on track long enough to deliver him home. But will he be able to drive the story to its ultimate conclusion before his Creator reaches theirs?