Dora Minor, a quirky and fiercely courageous girl growing up on a remote Virginia mountain, belongs to a family of outliers thanks to their Quaker beliefs that all people are born equal. After her mother's death, her indomitable grandmother Alma--a revolutionary in her own right, becomes her primary caregiver and protector. Alma, with her strong moral compass, and Watcher James, an eccentric woodsman who talks to Nature spirits, shape her worldview and guide her to reject the status quo. When Dora's father and formerly enslaved Ginny Dudley open a school for Black children, it sparks a violent backlash. After her father's death and then a lynching, Dora is forced to face hard truths about her neighbors and her family's past.