When the Nicholas family first sees the derelict old house near London that has been left to them in Aunt Deb's will, they are sadly disappointed. Thirteen-year-old Roger is the most disappointed, since, having moved place to place all his life with his gifted actor-father, he longs for some measure of stability. Then Roger and his father discover, under peeling wallpaper and rotted paneling, traces of a much older, more graceful house, and their misgivings disappear--until, one night, the house is filled with a sound of wild grieving that Roger traces to an empty room.
 
Only Roger--and later his small stepsister Pippa--sees the ghosts, among them is that of Tom Garland, a well-known actor in Shakespeare's time. But Roger's father, playing Hamlet in the famous National Theatre, is caught up, unknowingly, in Tom's old tragedy. It is a frightened Roger who has to risk his life to find a way to mend the past before the present becomes its tragic echo.