In January 1857, the body of a female college student was discovered in the attic of Breckenridge Towers---the liberal arts building on the campus of Milton College---hanging from an overhead beam. Over sixty years later in January of 1920, a respected college professor was found dead, and he, like the woman in 1857, was swinging from the end of a rope in the attic of Breckenridge. The mysterious hangings were investigated by police and college authorities, and the cause of death in each case, although regrettable, was determined to be suicide.

Cousins Tom and Chris Sabo, now roommates at Milton College in the fall of 1968, are intrigued with the rumored "haunting" of Breckenridge by the ghost who killed herself in 1857. Along with Sarah Rockford, a fellow freshman at Milton, they begin to search into the past, a journey which soon turns into unexpected shock and fear as the threesome confronts not only forces of the real world, but those of the supernatural.