Cowslip is on the auction block. The year is 1861, and the Civil War has begun, but it means little to a frightened black girl still at the mercy of whites. An old slave at her former home has taught her magic spells to use against the cruel master, who in his heartlessness had given Cowslip her very name as a mean joke. But all those spells are no good to her now.
In her new home Cowslip is put in charge of the Master's children. She soon makes many new friends, among them Job, who is educated and had once been free, and Reba, whose lover has run away to the North. These people dream of freedom and dare to speak of forbidden things. Through them Cowslip becomes involved in frightening and dangerous activities she does not fully understand.
