The daughter of a mountain gatherer and healer, sixteen-year-old Shug Yokem knows every sound the mountains make: the creaking of limbs in winter, the prattle of rain in spring, the whisper of summer winds, and the crackle of fall's sun-dried foliage underfoot. She knows which plants will cure and which will kill. Until Cleo Sizemore shows up on her and her mother's doorstep, she has never had an enemy, let alone entertained the idea of killing someone. But now that she has discovered her stepfather's murderous secret, her life and the lives of her siblings and mother are endangered. A cunning and callous man, Cleo has found a way to keep Shug quiet---fabricating a story that imprisons her behind the barred windows and locked doors of an institution for the epileptic and the feeble-minded. Undaunted, she ingratiates herself with some of the staff and learns what really goes on beyond the doors of the surgery room. Desperate to return home, she escapes into the unfamiliar mountains of Virginia. There she encounters a mysterious woman who warns Shug, "Na path doth lead home, na 'til the unwill is undone, an the evil done the two women, righted." Shug realizes she must return to the institution and find these women before she can go home and save her family. The two women prove to be connected to Shug in ways she could never have imagined.