When a new treatment makes 12-year-old Charley Stanton's terminal illness survivable, she is able to leave her overly-protective parents and her stifling family farm to attend public school. But what should have been a return to normal pre-teen life is just another struggle as she is excluded, tormented, and victimized. Between the loneliness of school and the isolation of the farm, Charley cannot take it any longer and decides to run away.
But a strange, colorful bird, a desperate need to break free, and a daring leap of faith lead Charley, like Alice down the hole, through a hedge and into a dry riverbed in world-- that appears like our own- is actually something very, very different. There, Charlie much learn its secrets, its magic...and its dangers.
A danger she must learn to fight if she is to make it through.