Two little girls - one white, one colored; one free, one a slave; both from loving families - become unlikely friends in 1852 Bedford County, Virginia. Across the state in Loudoun County, thirteen-year-old Quaker Levi Clement helps run the family farm and mill, minds his brothers, and struggles with the urge to fight bullies. In 1861, when the War Between the States begins in earnest, the lives of Willa, Surry, and Levi are thrown onto unimagined paths.