When Vivi Endo attends hypnotherapy, in the hope of overcoming her sudden phobia of water glasses, she has concerns about Peter's slightly unorthodox methods. Is Vivi paranoid, or is Peter manipulating her? Where do her endless tears, her screams of terror, come from?

Her childhood was happy, always very, very happy. When Vivi believes she witnesses the abduction of a young girl, her present reality and early past become interwoven, under hypnosis, as she reaches back towards her five-year-old self and a dark, forgotten secret. Meantime, the mystery of Harry Brown, the poetry-loving stranger in the park who creates an angel, overlaps with Vivi's own story.

The occasional glimpses of Vivi's true self, through her diary, give a guide as to how the secret was embedded and why she needs to ask so many questions now, about her therapy. Can what she names 'hopenosis' help unpick the unremembered past?