Australian librarian Gerard Freeman corresponds with the mysterious Englishwoman Alice Jessell, confined to a wheelchair... Gerard's mother keeps some disturbing secret... And behind this secret are the secrets of her grandmother... And the mysteries of her great-grandmother... What must be the horror that has haunted the family for a century ?Ancient short stories, yellowed diaries and letters, modern email... Different texts are written by different people, but there is an author who links them together, and there is a ghost of an author for whom there are no barriers of time and no statute of limitations...