Housesitting an art-filled mansion with good friend and co-worker Nick Borja sounds ideal to Michael Penfield. This will be his first taste of independence and self-sufficiency. Nick, child of a large extended family, agrees. But things at the genteel old house aren’t all that they seem, and it isn’t long before Michael is disturbed by a mysterious unseen caller who visits in the night. And Nick himself begins to change, shifting from the funny and good-natured art student they all know to someone aloof, sharp, and dismal. Then the Poet’s Corner Bookstore begins to have disturbances of its own. Even with Cassie Valentine, Michael’s girlfriend and gifted psychic, beside him, Michael can’t see who or what is stalking the mansion. Nor can either of them perceive what might be troubling the bookstore. All of which leads to a very worrisome question: is it Nick himself who is haunted?