Christina Smith is 12-years-old and her world has been turned upside down. Forest Lake has been her whole world, filled with magic everywhere she turns until her father dies of cancer and any kind of light is hard to find. Christina's mother has been whittled down by her father's illness, made bitter and hard. She turns to someone new, a hospice volunteer and only with him, does Christina see any part of the mother she has always known and loved. Feeling abandoned and angry, Christina struggles to find happiness again. It will take the help of her best friend, Tadpole Stevens, John Collier, her mother's new husband and other good friends in her neighborhood to teach her that the magic was always there--inside of her.