In 1919, independent-minded fifteen-year-old Rosalind lives in India with her English parents, and when they fear she has fallen in with some rebellious types who believe in Indian self-government, she is sent "home" to London, where she has never been before and where her older brother died, to stay with her two aunts.

When thirteen-year-old Clair's relationship with her minister father changes after her mother's death, she stops speaking, and the subsequent events change both their lives.