Jory is a handsome, talented fourteen-year-old boy who wants to follow his mother Cathy in her career in the ballet, while nine-year old Bart, who sees himself as plain and clumsy, feels inferior to his brother.

He also has congenital analgesia and cannot feel pain as a result, putting him at serious risk of injury or death by infection.

Lonely from all the attention his siblings are receiving, Bart befriends the new elderly next door neighbor, who invites him over for cookies and ice cream and encourages him to call her "Grandmother."

The old lady's butler, John Amos, also seems to befriend Bart, but begins to fill the boy's mind with stories about the sinful nature of women.

Bart becomes destructive and violent towards his parents and siblings; he kicks Jory in the privates, and even tries to drown Cindy in her baby pool.

Jory's dog, Clover, comes up missing and is later found dead with a piece of barbed wire twisted about his neck.

At the same time, Jory starts to become suspicious of his parents' relationship, noticing their family resemblance and wondering why his mother would marry her first husband Paul, who was much older than her, before Chris.

Bart filches his mother's manuscript pages and is enraged to learn the truth about his parents: Cathy and Chris are brother and sister, and his grandmother locked them in an attic for years, slowly poisoning them to gain an inheritance.

Bart seems to have recovered from the worst of his madness, but still dwells on the power wielded by his great-grandfather, whose millions he now stands to inherit.

The sequel, Seeds of Yesterday, has also been adapted for a television film, and was released the same year as part of a special two-night event concluding the series.