When she becomes pregnant at 15, Marigold is rejected by her family and forced to fend for herself. And when she loses her baby in the forest, her whole world turns upside down. She's even more distraught upon discovering she has an inexplicable power that makes her both beautiful and terrifying - and something of a local legend.Meanwhile, migrant workers Vern and Paul discover a violet-eyed baby and take it upon themselves to care for her. The men soon pair up with a widow and her two children, and the untraditional family finds their way in fits and starts toward taking care of each other.As survival brings one family together, a young boy finds himself with nary a friend to his name amid the dust storms raging across Kansas. Fourteen-year-old Coot, a child preacher with a prodigy's memory, is on the run with thousands of stolen dollars - and the only thing he's sure of is that Mobile, Alabama, is his destination.As the years pass and a world war looms, their stories intertwine in surprising ways.