One dusty postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country physician, is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. The residence of the Ayres family for more than two centuries, the once impressive and handsome Georgian house is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. Its owners--mother, son, and daughter--are struggling to keep pace with a changing society, as well as with conflicts of their own.
But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a strange way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become entwined with his.