Clare Kelly's mother abandons her family without warning when Clare is ten years old. When Clare's father later dies unexpectedly, Clare is alone in the world with no resources or family to turn to. She takes a job as a nanny to a pair of preschoolers whose father is a new age guru, and whose mother has disappeared. She longs to return to the pleasant quiet life she once knew, but life at the ashram inexorably leads her in an entirely different direction.