When Benjamin Gaul, the 13-year-old son of an English officer and his Sinhalese wife, is suddenly and mysteriously orphaned, he is sent back to live in Victorian England, in an orphanage deep in the Kentish countryside. However, everything is not quite so cosy and safe as it at first appears: a strange illness breaks out among the orphanage children and weird creatures haunt the orchards and fields. Nothing daunted, Benjamin Gaul, together with plucky Gypsy girl Rosalie, is determined to unravel the mystery.