By Jane Anne Phillips - In 1874, after the Civil War, twelve-year-old ConaLee and her silent mother, Eliza, leave behind their mountain home and travel to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia. Haunted by loss, war, and the disappearance of ConaLee’s father, they seek a new beginning. At the asylum, ConaLee cares for her mother while pretending to be her maid, and both slowly begin to heal as they become part of a strange and unforgettable community of patients, staff, and outsider