Ellen found herself standing, suitcases in hand, in front of a towering three-story Victorian house. The outside looked absolutely gothic, not to mention old and run-down. With the sudden and tragic death of her parents, fifteen-year-old Ellen was placed in the custody of her aunt Darcy, an aunt she'd never met, in a town hundreds of miles away from all she knew and loved. Instantly, she felt as abandoned as the old house. But that was about to change.

Shortly after stepping past the huge wooden doors of the old relic, an odd feeling came over her, one of many she would experience. In the days and weeks that followed, things happened to make Ellen feel as if there was something the house wanted her to know. Each night, she curled up on the window seat in her attic room with a few choice books from the library. One by one, she searched their pages for information about the portrait of the woman in the library and the majestic coat-of-arms in the downstairs hall. One night, she got lost in the pages of a fictional story until she fell asleep, the book perched on her lap. Its story lulled her into a deep sleep, weaving a dream she would never forget, and answered questions she hadn't even thought to ask.