Lou is an assertive 12-year-old who aspires to be a writer one day like her father. She has a distant relationship with her mother and is protective of her little brother. Lou’s world is shattered after the car accident that kills her father, and she has a hard time adapting to life in the mountains or trusting her great-grandmother. Lou places her faith in facts and believes the doctors’ verdict that her mother will never recover. By the end of the story, Lou learns to put her faith in the healing power of love. 

Oz is Lou’s seven-year-old brother. Imaginative and easily frightened, Oz believes in magic and hopes to use a wishing well to bring his mother back to health. Although Lou frequently protects Oz from bullies, he eventually learns to fight his own battles. Oz teaches Lou how to recognize the importance of faith and gives Lou a purpose when she feels her family has all been taken away. He functions as a kind of child-like spirit guide, in that he follows faith when Lou is initially only reliant on facts.