Number 47, a fourteen-year-old slave boy growing up under the watchful eye of a brutal master in 1832, meets the mysterious Tall John, who introduces him to a magical science and also teaches him the meaning of freedom.

Jasmine and Nolan Houston's peaceful life on their horse farm in Lowell, Massachusetts, is uprooted when a tragedy forces the couple to return to the plantation of Jasmine's childhood, where they struggle to keep their family together in the face of violence.