Eighth-grader Molly's ability to throw a knuckleball earns her a spot on the baseball team, which not only helps her feel connected to her recently deceased father, who loved baseball, it helps in other aspects of her life, as well.
The life of Nathaniel Mason, a graduate student in upstate New York, seems to not really be his own after he meets the cryptic, mysterious Jerome Coolberg and begins a dark spiral toward a nervous breakdown.
Louisa Barrett, headmistress of the Macaulay School for Girls in 1901 Buffalo, New York, feels secure in her position at the school and in the community until a mysterious death at the hydro-electric power development at nearby Niagara Falls forces her to return to a past she had struggled to conceal.