The Casteels are a poor family living in a cabin up in the hills of West Virginia Heaven, the eldest, is taken at the age of 12 up to see her real mother's grave, an adored and delicate woman who dies soon after giving birth Heaven's father remarries swiftly but his violent ways drive away his second wife, leaving Heaven to run home and family One day he returns home from work with a novel solution he will sell his children to the childless rich