Christy (Lauren Lee Smith) and the rest of the Cutter Gap community are just beginning to recover from a typhoid epidemic when a storm hits the rural alcove. In A New Beginning, the second of a two-part PAX production that began with A Change of Seasons, she gets stranded in the forest with Dr. MacNeill (Stewart Finlay-McLennan), and her fiancé David (James Waterston) risks life and limb to rescue her. Despite a loss of property, the town makes it through the storm relatively intact, but many have been changed by the experience. Christy, for instance, has come to see Dr. MacNeill in a new light, thus questioning her engagement to David. Will she marry the preacher or break off the engagement? Marriage is on the minds of several characters in this engaging recollection by the elderly Christy about her experiences as a young schoolteacher in the Smoky Mountains.