Sixteen-year-old Heather Lucas is the freak girl who got hit by lightning, and she has a scar on her palm to prove it. Since then, everything has gotten weird. Her mother left them, which makes no sense. Her Dad thinks she's a liar, because she won't explain why she keeps running away.The thing is, she can't explain it. She just disappears and then reappears miles away, with the scar on her palm tingling. In between, she drifts in a sparkling blue void outside of time and space, where indistinct forms of people float by, lost in the blue. Is she going crazy? Odd things are even happening at school. Why would the new boy, Alex, be interested in her? He shows her a paper he's written about a place called Alanar. The make-believe city from Mom's old bedtime stories? What does he know about her mother? Heather is determined to find out, especially after she sees the scar on his palm, identical to her own.