What's worse than a homemade patchwork quilt for your tenth birthday? For Charlie, nothing. All she wants are new flowered chucks, but instead, she's stuck with the most uncool gift imaginable. Yet, when the quilt wraps around her, she feels a hug full of pure magic and inhales the scent of Grandma's sweet sugar cookies. Or did she? She's maybe, probably sure that the hug thing might have happened. And that's when things get weird.

The enchanted quilt seems to have a mind of its own. It hugs Charlie, it flies around the room with Elmer, her pet guinea pig, and takes her on amazing nighttime adventures. When Charlie's grandmother dies, she and Elmer and her brother Josh set out on their own personal journeys of discovery. At first Charlie's secret nocturnal expeditions take her and Elmer around the neighborhood and to local farm, where they encounter mad dogs with an angry guard llama. Josh fights his own demons, mostly on-line, his keyboard clickety clacking with fury. Charlie and Elmer's supernatural ventures take them further and further from their familiar world. In the end, they whoosh across the ocean and find a joyful Grandma painting in the city square. Or do they? Is Charlie's quilt a gateway to new realms, or is she just dreaming her way to a happier reality?