Rescued from a rainy, boggy town where she works in a dismal factory, ten-year-old orphan Isabelle learns that she is the last surviving member of a family that tends the world's only remaining magic-producing farm.

During the day on an unusual farm, Daisy the lazy cow would rather eat jelly than grass, Frankie the cranky dog watches television instead of sheep, and the other animals behave equally oddly but at night, all are good at sleeping.

Henry and his dog Mudge tangle with a grumpy goose when they visit a farm.

The farms of Hollow's End were blessed with miracle crops, especially the shimmering, iridescent wheat of Wren's family farm, but then the black mercury blight came, and the blight destroys everything: crops turned to silver-black sludge, animals sickened and blinded, even people; Wren believes she is responsible, and desperate to save Hollow's End she turns to her ex-boyfriend--but they find that there is a lot they do not know about their town and...