The New World,1590: the colonial settlement at Roanoke Island has fallen apart. Resupply ships, promised to return with provisions, are five months late. The colonists fear they've been lost at sea, and desert the settlement. But one woman defies the leadership and stays behind, starting work on a bridge connecting the settlement to the return ships' planned landing site. Untrained in engineering and working against brutal conditions, with only improvised tools and her own resourcefulness, the labor is dangerous and all but impossible. But with her family aboard the return ship, she can’t bring herself to abandon the task.