Claire Bailey is almost twelve and spending a lot of time alone with Will Ransom, a shy and withdrawn boy of almost thirteen. Claire's mother is growing concerned that they might be "experimenting" and she's right, but not the way she suspects. Will has an experiment to increase his powers of concentration. With Claire's help he succeeds beyond all expectation. But his newfound gift comes with unforeseen consequences making it difficult to distinguish what is real and what isn't. To make matters worse Claire's dad is given a job transfer and her family leaves town. Without Claire to help him Will grows into troubled manhood. Is he a brilliant physicist or is he insane and what really happened to Claire?