The story begins by telling of a curse that was put on the males in the Iver family. This curse caused them to have recurring nightmares of being on one side of a chasm with a terrible sandstorm and trying to reach the other side on which a man and a horse ride away.
Bills' daughter Tracy and her husband are fixing up an old rundown house in South Carolina so they can use it as a bed and breakfast. Bill goes to visit them one weekend and he sees 2 boys in the attic, one is dressed in knee pants and a frilly white shirt and the other boy has a sweatshirt and blue jeans on but his neck has a red streak around it and he is hanging up by a strap around his neck which is attached to a chain. Bill tries to reach for the boy, but his hand goes through air.
No one but Bill sees the boys and even the local police do not believe him, even when they see the scraped bolt and green threads in the ceiling. Bill says that the boy he saw looks like a boy who has been missing for two weeks and he is still not believed.
You will have to read the book for yourself to find out who Bill saw, what his nightmares mean, and what happened to the missing boy!