Fleeing a disastrous marriage and an abusive husband, Andy Calhoun and her frightened young daughter, Hillary, head for the small town of Pemberton, Georgia, "in search of banality" and calm. Instead, she finds herself caught up in the intrigues of the elite old families of Pemberton. Just as she begins to assimilate to her new world of horse racing and society dinners, she meets Tom Dabney, the wild prodigal son of Pemberton society who lives in a magical house out in the woods. An exuberant poet who worships the wilderness, Tom both fascinates and repels Andy. Rumors about Tom's strange pagan rites hint at possible madness, and Andy resolves to keep herself and her daughter away from him. Nevertheless, against her better judgment, Andy finds herself becoming immersed in his life and his strange, mystical world. He and his house at Goat's Creek prove to have a profound healing effect on the traumatized Hillary, who longs to learn all the ways of the forest from Tom. As Hillary develops into a woodland nymph, adept at deer tracking and archery, her mother, Andy, is slowly pulled into Tom's charismatic orbit. But when the fauna of Goat's Creek begin to suddenly develop mysterious tumors, however, Tom truly becomes a madman. When he discovers his precious woods are being threatened by the wastes from a nearby nuclear power plant Tom declares open war on the enemy and Andy must choose between her life with Tom and the more sane one she left behind, if Pemberton society will take her back.