When her baby brother is kidnapped by crows, seventh-grader Prue McKeel ventures into the forbidden Impassable Wilderness--a dangerous and magical forest in the middle of Portland, Oregon--and soon finds herself involved in a war among the various inhabitants.

In the aftermath of a young's girl's midnight seance that awakens a long-slumbering, malevolent spirit, a band of runaway orphans teams up with an underground collective of saboteurs to rescue friends imprisoned in an industrial wasteland.