Frank Szatowski is shocked when his daughter, Maggie, calls him for the first time in three years. He’s even more surprised when she invites him to her upcoming wedding in New Hampshire. Frank is ecstatic and determined to finally make things right. He arrives to find that the wedding is at a private estate. It seems that Maggie failed to mention that she’s marrying Aidan Gardner, the son of a famous tech billionaire. Feeling desperately out of place, Frank focuses on reconnecting with Maggie and getting to know her new family. But Aidan is withdrawn and evasive; Maggie doesn’t seem to have time for him; and he finds that the locals are disturbingly hostile to the Gardners. Frank needs to know more about this family his daughter is marrying into, but if he pushes too hard, he could lose her forever.

Fresh out of rehab, Mallory Quinn takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy. Mallory immediately loves it and sincerely bonds with Teddy, a sweet, shy boy who is never without his sketchbook and pencil. His drawings are the usual fare: trees, rabbits, balloons. But one day, he draws something different: a man in a forest, dragging a woman’s lifeless body. Then, Teddy’s artwork becomes increasingly sinister, and his stick figures quickly evolve into lifelike sketches well beyond the ability of any five-year-old. Mallory begins to wonder if these are glimpses of a long-unsolved murder, perhaps relayed by a supernatural force. Knowing just how crazy it all sounds, Mallory nevertheless sets out to decipher the images and save Teddy before it’s too late.

It’s May 1987. Fourteen-year-old Billy Marvin of Wetbridge, New Jersey, is a nerd, but a decidedly happy nerd. Afternoons are spent with his buddies, watching copious amounts of television, gorging on Pop-Tarts, debating who would win in a brawl (Rocky Balboa or Freddy Krueger? Bruce Springsteen or Billy Joel? Magnum P.I. or T.J. Hooker?), and programming video games on his Commodore 64 late into the night. Then Playboy magazine publishes photos of their idol, "Wheel of Fortune" hostess Vanna White, Billy meets expert computer programmer Mary Zelinsky, and everything changes.