Fourteen-year-old Melody Sook has one dream: to dance. Bound to a wheelchair in small-town Nebraska, she meets a stranger at the circus who calls himself the Eggstabletman.

He is charming, patient, and impossibly wise. Only Melody can see him. Under his guidance, she begins to change. But with every step toward her dream, an unease shadows her nights.

The town whispers about the 29ers Club — young people who vanish before thirty. Some mentors change your life. Others take it for themselves.