Growing up in Queens in the 1930s with a drunken abusive father and a strict grandmother, Cid Wymann hasn't had a lot of exposure to the outside world. This changes when he, one day, sneaks out to follow his grandma to church services. When he arrives at a movie theatre, he threatens to tell unless she lets him see the show with her. There, he watches Captain Blood, a dashing swordsman, and his dream of becoming a fencing master is born. Cid eventually becomes friends with two boys as they unite to battle the bullies in their neighborhood.
Ceejay has always grown up in the shadow of her rebellious yet charming older brother, Bobby. She doesn't mind, though. Ceejay and Bobby have always been able to understand each other better than anyone else. So when Bobby is sent to fight in the war in Iraq, Ceejay is devastated, and can't wait until he comes home. But when he does, it's not quite how Ceejay had imagined. Bobby has changed, and no one, not even Ceejay, understands him anymore. First, he's avoiding his family, then he's consorting and even befriending Ceejay's enemy, Captain Crazy?
Ada's life has never been easy. Shifted from one terrible foster home after another, she hasnt ever caught a break. She knows she is differentshe has abilities that make her capable of identifying health problems in others and herself and heal them. At fifteen, shes been inand been kicked out of eight horrid foster homes, when she finally gets contact with a family member, the only one shes ever had contact with, her Aunt Jessie.
Koumaïl, known as Blaise Fortune by his adopted mother, Gloria, loves to hear all about Glorias family and how he came to be with her. He loves hearing about Glorias five brothers; Fotia and Oleg, with their broad shoulders, Anatoly, who squints behind his thick glasses, Iefrem, whose hair is curlier than a lambs, and Dobromir, with his angelic smile. He has memorized his story; how there was a terrible train accident in Glorias pear orchard, how Gloria heard a French woman call for help inside the train. The woman had a baby, whom Gloria says was Blaise.
John doesn't see the world like everyone else; from the time he was eight, he has had strange dreams and finds bizarre differences with things he's seen a million times before. There are also the letters that pop up unexpectedly at random intervals in his life: CDRS. As he comes to realize that these things are not normal, he digs deeper. He and his friends discover the existence of travelers, people who can journey through time and space and who seem to follow him. When John learns of this, things become even more complicated.
