The plot follows a teenaged girl who suspects her recently orphaned cousin is practicing witchcraft.

Her 17-year-old cousin Julia Grant, who has been in boarding school in Boston, comes to live to with Rae's family in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Rae is stricken with a series of mishaps, including an unexplained case of hives prior to a school dance, and her dog Trickle dies mysteriously.

Rae discovers from a local professor in her neighborhood that the area where Julia's family was from in the Ozarks had a reputation for witchcraft and rumors of covens.

She flees with Mike to meet her mother in Santa Fe and prevent her from falling victim to a car accident that Sarah has invoked upon her.