The Wrong Way Home

Twelve-year-old Fern, whose birth name is Frankie, lives with her mother, Jamie, at the Ranch, an isolated, off-the-grid community in upstate New York led by a man called Dr. Ben. They moved there six years earlier, after years of drifting between cities. Residents live communally: growing vegetables, raising animals, knitting, and following Dr. Ben's strict rules, which forbid technology, processed food, sugar, and modern medicine. Residents adopt nature-inspired names and shed their former identities. Fern regards Dr. Ben as a visionary and father figure. Her best friend, Meadowlark, has lived at the Ranch even longer; Meadowlark's mother, Dahlia, is Dr. Ben's closest companion.

Dr. Ben summons Fern and tells her she has been chosen for her rite of passage, a dangerous coming-of-age challenge normally reserved for 15-year-olds. A Ranch teenager named Rain died during his rite the previous spring, a fact Dr. Ben framed as nature's way of strengthening the community. When Fern asks to consult her mother, Dr. Ben discourages it, calling Jamie weak. Jamie has been questioning his authority and has been placed on a water fast as punishment. Fern resolves to prove herself worthy.

Days later, Jamie wakes Fern before dawn and secretly removes them from the Ranch. With a car and supplies arranged through a contact named Paul, they head west. After a full day on the road, Jamie admits they are not going back. She explains that Rain's death shook her faith, that the decision to accelerate Fern's rite was retaliation for Jamie's wavering loyalty, and that she feared Fern could be hurt. Devastated, Fern stops speaking to her mother as they drive through state after state.

They arrive at the Lighthouse Motel in Driftaway Beach, California. Jamie begins a housekeeping job arranged through Paul. Fern learns Paul is actually Forest, a former Ranch member whose departure with his daughter Kestrel the community had treated as a disappearance. Jamie asks Fern to give their new life two months. Fern outwardly agrees but secretly resolves to contact Dr. Ben and return before the spring equinox, 72 days away.

Fern drafts a letter to Dr. Ben but discovers at the post office that she needs a street address, postage, and money. At Birdie's Tea Shoppe, she meets Babs, an imposing, warmhearted woman who turns out to be Jamie's godmother. Jamie enrolls Fern at Driftaway Middle School, where assessments reveal strong math and science skills but severe gaps in history and geography. Fern agrees to attend partly because the computer lab offers unrestricted internet access, but her searches for the Ranch turn up nothing since she lacks Dr. Ben's last name and the Ranch's address. She visits Ron B. Tully at Foglamp Investigators, a local firm, and he agrees to find the address for $300.

To earn the money, Fern takes a job clearing the cluttered second floor above Birdie's, where Babs and the shop's namesake, Birdie, once planned to open a high-tea room before Birdie drowned while kayaking. Fern is also paired on a science project with Eddie Chattar, a determined classmate. Eddie's parents chase paranormal phenomena around the world, driven by grief over the drowning of Eddie's older sister, Skye, at Loch Ness. Eddie hopes to disprove the local Spirit of the Sea legend, about a ghostly figure who appears atop an inaccessible bluff with a lantern, convinced that debunking it will persuade her parents to stop moving.

Fern settles into a routine, picking up litter for her science teacher Mr. Carlson's extra-credit program and devouring books on subjects she was never taught at the Ranch. Her certainty in Dr. Ben's teachings begins to erode. She notices that Mr. Carlson relies on an insulin pump to survive, something Dr. Ben's rules would forbid. When Forest and Kestrel visit, Kestrel warns Fern that Dr. Ben once struck Forest with a rake for questioning him. On a day trip to Muir Woods, Jamie comes alive among the redwood trees, explaining how their shallow roots intertwine underground to hold each other up.

Eddie confronts Fern with a printed checklist of cult warning signs, a term their mothers used in conversation. Fern is so unsettled by her own answers that she erupts in anger, ending both the project and the friendship. Alone, she looks up "cult" online and finds it defined as excessive or misplaced admiration for a person or thing. Jamie reveals the full truth: Dr. Ben has been arrested multiple times, is not a doctor, took control of every member's savings, and used trips he claimed were for lectures to take personal vacations. Ron B. Tully's research confirms Dr. Ben's real name is Benjamin Wozniacki and that he does not own the Ranch property. Fern confronts Jamie with her deepest wound: that by choosing the Ranch, Jamie chose a place where she did not have to be Fern's mother. Jamie acknowledges this, apologizes, and promises to change.

When Ron B. Tully sends the Ranch's address, Fern confirms it on Google Maps but feels only emptiness. Jamie announces plans to move to Reno, Nevada, and Fern, panicking at the thought of another move, mails her letter to Dr. Ben. Days later, Eddie is hospitalized after falling while trying to climb the bluff alone. That night, Fern discovers Babs returning home in a muddied nightgown with a kerosene lantern and realizes Babs is the Spirit of the Sea. Furious, Fern runs to the motel, where she finds the Ranch's white van. Dr. Ben and Meadowlark say they received her letter and drove four days to retrieve her. Dr. Ben claims Jamie agreed Fern could go ahead with them. Exhausted, Fern climbs in.

By morning, the deception is clear. Dr. Ben refuses to let Fern use the bathroom or order her own food, gives vague answers about Jamie, and carries an iPhone despite forbidding technology for everyone else. Fern realizes Jamie does not know where she is. At a diner, she grabs a waitress's hand and says the man in the booth is not her father and she needs help. The waitress calls the police, who take Dr. Ben into custody. Meadowlark refuses to speak to Fern.

Jamie brings both girls back to Driftaway Beach. Dahlia flies in to retrieve Meadowlark, who asks Fern, "How could you?" (307). Dr. Ben is charged with taking Fern without parental consent and other offenses. Eddie makes a full recovery, and she and Fern reconcile. Babs takes Fern to the bluff and explains the Spirit of the Sea as a generational tradition: Birdie held the role before Babs, who took it up after Birdie's death to guide Birdie's spirit home. Babs retires the tradition so no one else gets hurt. Fern recognizes the difference between using a belief to control people and using it to love them.

Babs reveals she has renovated the second floor into a rent-free apartment for Fern and Jamie. Jamie hesitates, but Fern says yes. Four months later, Fern has begun reclaiming her birth name, Frankie, and is about to start a marine conservation camp. Jamie works at a plant nursery and is enrolling in community college. Eddie's family has decided to stay in Driftaway Beach. On the bluff, they scatter wildflower petals to honor Birdie, Skye, and Meadowlark, who has not responded to Fern's letters but whom Fern still hopes will one day understand. Fern reflects on her new community, interconnected like redwood roots, and puts her arm around her mother.