In the Middle of a Wish takes place in 2047 when Mom and her daughter, Star, leave their home in New Bay and set out on foot with a women's collective called Caretakers. They are part of the last wave of climate refugees leaving the Westlands. Sheltering in abandoned box stores, they join another group of refugees, families and artisans who are led by a guide named Riga. Riga is a person of indeterminate gender and ethnicity. Star and Riga have an intense attraction which develops on the journey east. Mom befriends a woman and her husband who are closer to Mom's age of seventy. Mom is, on rare occasions, prescient; and she believes in "the knowing," an ability to access knowledge through dreams. All the refugees are en route to Heartland, a region rumored to have miles of wind farms, underground cities, and blockchain banking. When the group arrives at the newly formed Valley Sea to take a ferry to the Sierra foothills, they encounter another group called Tinkers. The Tinkers fought on the side of the Guardians in the civil war of 2030. The Caretakers and artisans were on the side of the Reformers. There is a clash, a meeting, an agreement. Most of the refugees choose to board the solar ferry to cross the Valley Sea. Those who make it to the other side are surprised by what they find there. Some stay
there, and others continue the journey across the mountains. Their discoveries en route are equally, although antithetically, stunning.