There are two major settings in "Bird Bones and Wood Ash": a rural hillside and the fictional city of Newford, where many of de Lint's stories take place. The hillside is where Jaime took her lover Annie when Annie was dying; there, she found a fairy ring. It introduced her to some strange beings: "At first, Jaime knows them only as women with the faces of animals: mare and deer, wild boar and bear, raven and toad.

And others. So many others. Following her.... " And "Where they have been they leave behind a curious residue of dried blood and rose petals, tiny bird bones and wood ashes." From these beings, Jaime gains the power to enter other people's minds and make changes in them, and she receives animal powers of acute hearing and being able to see in the dark. When her life falls apart because of her...