Living in the Appalachian foothills in Northeast Georgia, Abetta Asbury has an unusual gift: the ability to enter the minds of others and remove their pain and suffering through a psychic process her family calls bleeding. After her sister-in-law, Bella, convinces her to ignore a generations-old warning about bleeding family members, Abetta begins to bleed her shut-in brother, Harlan, with disastrous results. Harlan’s greatly improved mood coincides with a series of mysterious murders. And as Harlan seems to get better, Ethan, Abetta’s patient and crush, begins to slide further and further into mental decline. As Abetta tries to strike an impossible balance, she begins to learn about the unpredictable consequences of trying to mold the world into a happier place.