The movie opens with Jessie moving into her fiancé’s house. On the way there, they have a car accident, killing the fiancé, causing Jessie to have a miscarriage and leaving her unable to walk. The hospital makes Jessie call her Dad (whom she hasn’t seen for years) to pick her up. Back at her Dad’s house in St. Francis, Louisiana, Jessie is given her mother’s room. Her mother died when she was just a baby, ostensibly from cancer. While looking around the room one day, she finds some video tapes in a box labeled "Jessabelle." She plays one and watches her mother talking to Jessabelle (Jessie thinking she means her). On the video, her mother gives her a reading using tarot cards. The first card is Death, which her mother says means "transition". The next card says that she has never left St.