The late-twentieth-century descendants of anti-slavery emigrants worry about maintaining religious superiority over a rival family while launching a harassment campaign against a Wiccan newcomer, an effort that is challenged by a young man's military service.

When her mother dies in childbirth, Jessica's father sends his infant daughter to New York to be raised by an older aunt. Aunt Harriet tells Jessica nothing of her father's offers to take her back, and pushes her into an arranged marriage with an abusive and unfaithful man. After her aunt and husband die, Jessica is alone in the world with her infant son. Returning to the Kansas ranch where her life began, she doesn't know whom to trust. Will...