Annabella Paxton, earth witch and single parent, lives on her apple orchard with her three-year-old daughter, Melanie. During the annual Scarecrow Trail event, Mellie helps to create their exhibit and names her scarecrow Carter. It’s all just a little girl’s imagination, but when she is given a gold box and obsesses over its contents—a man she’s also named Carter—Belle begins to worry. Yet she can’t help but wish the man Mellie describes were real.

Carter Trelawney has spent over a century under a warlock’s spell. Trapped in a gold box, he has neither form nor substance, and when a little girl’s wish propels him into a scarecrow, he begins to dream of a life beyond his thoughts, a life with a beautiful woman named Belle and an imaginative child named Mellie. He knows there’s little hope, but a man can wish.

But Mellie’s a powerful little witch, with an affinity for metal, and Mellie has the key to get what she wants—a man in their family, named Carter. She’ll do anything to make her wish a reality.