Cameron is used to moving at a moment's notice because he and his mother are always running away from his supposedly violent father, but he is disturbed by their latest refuge, a creepy, deserted farmhouse, haunted by bloodthirsty dogs--and when he sees a boy hiding in the barn, and finds an old picture of the same boy, he starts wondering about the possibility of human ghosts.

Hans, a foundling raised by a grave robber, helps Countess Angela Gabriela, nearly thirteen, when she is torn away from her dream of being a professional puppeteer by an evil archduke out to destroy her and her parents.

Chandra Kabelo, a teenaged African girl, must save her younger siblings after they are kidnapped and forced to serve as child soldiers in General Mandiki's rebel army.