On Christmas Eve in a religious, Pennsylvanian agrarian village called Jericho, where locals have forgone the use of modern technology, Lyddie and her friends visit a barn where they encounter a metal bust of a woman made by the Profane Industries, a company known known by locals as a “place of evil,” where sheep are told to be grown like vegetables and babies are sewed together with animals as slaves. The friends conclude that the metal bust is a failed experiment of the Profane Industries; they name her Hard Mary. The girls keep her at  Lyddie’s place. They are startled to hear Hard Mary speak in a strained voice. The girls unscrew her, pray for her, and charge her batteries. Hard Mary takes on human-like characteristics, speaking, using her hands, and reading. The girls construct legs for her to walk. One day, a foreign man drives by, looking for Hard Mary, startling Lyddie. Lyddie confronts her friends and they plan on telling the local elders about Hard Mary’s existence so that they can protect her from being melted down. Lyddie’s friend Mim proposes that they advocate on Hard Mary’s behalf by treating her as a machine to do chores in the collective ownership of their town. Suddenly, a group of boys barge into the room where Lyddie and the girls have kept Hard Mary. The boys harass the girls and Hard Mary. At Mim’s command, Hard Mary brutally assaults the boys. After the fight dies down, one of the boys attacks Hard Mary. In the ensuing chaos, Hard Mary opens one of her eyes and projects a film of a man with glasses, whom Lyddie later recognizes as Dr. Robert Stoll. Months later, Dr. Stoll comes by Lyddie’s home to retrieve Hard Mary and has a tense confrontation with Lyddie. By this point, Mim has introduced Hard Mary to the village elders, and her services are in the collective ownership of the village. One day, a young man named Jonathan who helped create Hard Mary during his internship at Profane Industries comes by to retrieve Hard Mary but is intercepted by Mim. Later, Dr. Stoll returns with Profane Industries’ armed forces to retrieve Hard Mary. Jonathan goes with them, and Mim leaves on an expedition to retrieve Jonathan, likely never returning to Jericho again.