Thirteen-year-old Danny Levan is a bullied, half-Jewish boy in 1938 Surrey when he discovers strangely colored bits of plaster that can reform into what can only be described as his own protective time-traveling golem.

Ali Campbell-Lopez’s mother dies and comes out of a coma for the fourth time under circumstances that imply Ali has powers that will interest various national security agencies and enemy spies, prompting a violent assault on Ali and her teenage daughter, soon followed by the appearance of a much younger, time-traveling version of her mother.