Eleven-year-old Nedda Papas is obsessed with becoming an astronaut. In 1986 in Easter, a small Florida Space Coast town, her dreams seem almost within reach. But Theo, the scientist father she idolizes, is still reeling from the loss of her newborn brother several years before, and turns to the dangerous dream of extending his living daughter's childhood just a little longer. The result is an invention that alters the fabric of time. Decades later, Nedda has achieved her long-held dream and is traveling aboard the space ship Chawla, part of a small group hoping to colonize a distant planet. But as she floats in zero gravity, she and her crewmates face a serious crisis. Nedda may hold the key to the solution, if she can come to terms with her past and the future that awaits her.

One June day, an old book arrives on Simon Watson's doorstep, sent by an antiquarian bookseller who purchased it on speculation. It is a log from the owner of a traveling carnival in the 1700s, who reports strange and magical things, including the drowning death of a circus mermaid. Since then, generations of "mermaids" in Simon's family have drowned --- always on July 24, which is only weeks away. Could there be a curse on Simon's family? What does it have to do with the book, and can he get to the heart of the mystery in time to save his sister?