December 1986 and Trengillion's residents are preparing to celebrate Christmas. On New Year's Eve, family and friends gather around a log fire at the Old Vicarage and tell ghostly tales of yesteryear. In mid-January the weather turns colder; snowflakes fall and the Cornish landscape is transformed into a white world; and with the coming of the snow, people and objects vanish into thin air, thus reviving old tales of mysterious happenings during blizzards in bygone days. The Old Vicarage is the fifth in a series of seven books set in Trengillion on the south coast of Cornwall. The series covers a period of sixty years.