Thirteen-year-old Zinny Taylor lives in Bybanks, Kentucky, with too many brothers and sisters'a mess of ‘tadpoles' and ‘pumpkins' is what her uncle Nate calls them. When Zinny discovers a mysterious, overgrown trail that begins on her family farm, she thinks she's finally found a place of her own, a place she can go, away from her family, to hear herself think. But what Zinny comes to realize is that the mysteries of the trail are intertwined with her own unanswered questions and family secrets, and that the trail'and her passion to uncover it'is leading her on a journey home.