While spending long summer days at an abandoned farmhouse, six-year-old Mara Summers and her brothers attempt to fight their boredom by trapping birds under an old hackberry tree. Just as a stray bullet from a nearby hunting camp almost strikes Mara, the trap slams shut. The children celebrate, thinking they have finally caught a bird and that Mara's life has been spared. But when the box slowly opens and reveals a beautiful and mysterious child...