When his grandparents can no longer care for him on their enchanted Alabama farm, fifteen-year-old hemophiliac Stephen Hordsley is sent to live with his real estate czar father in Atlanta. After a miserable year failing to fit inside a world of power struggles and lies, Stephen attempts suicide. Flat on his back in a children’s hospital, he meets three extraordinary kids that tell a story paralleling his life and revealing clues to his family’s secret.