Eleven-year-old Stella Montgomery has always wondered about her family. What happened to her mother? And could she have a long-lost sister somewhere? Stella's awful Aunts refuse to tell her anything, and now they have sent her away to the old family home at Wormwood Mire, where she must live with two strange cousins and their governess.

But dark secrets slither and skulk within overgrown grounds of the house, and Stella must be brave if she's to find out who--or what--she really is...