Elsie and Abby have led a hard, strange childhood, secreted away in the remote town of Ellery Hollow. Orphaned at a young age, they face a populace that hates and fears them, and the only people that understand or care for them are those few who are even more of an outsider than they are. But Elsie and Abby have learned to cope by translating their lives into a series of tall tales: from their impossible birth to their adoption by the strangest of caretakers, to an eventual confrontation with the Hairy Man of the Forest—a terrible creature with a secret that threatens to destroy their tiny family.