After the death of her mother and her own painful battle with breast cancer, Joanna Teal returns to scientific work: a young graduate student studying bird nesting in the wilderness of southern Illinois. Determined to prove to herself that adversity has not broken her, Jo plunges headlong into her work until her lonely existence is disrupted by a mysterious girl who appears one day at her doorstep. The guest answers to the name Ursa and claims to have flown from a distant galaxy to find There are five wonders on Earth. Worried about the little dreamer, Joe, albeit reluctantly, allows Ursa to stay, unaware that this decision will soon turn the lives of both of them upside down.