Lucy's parents are not getting on very well. They decide to go away for a few weeks and to send Lucy to stay with a Granny she hardly knows in the Norfolk countryside, miles from London. The village has been taken over by an archaeological dig and Granny is very involved. Lucy hates history and makes herself thoroughly unpleasant so that Granny will send her back to London. However, when Lucy meets local boy, William, things seem to be improving until they find themselves entangled in something much more sinister. Lucy tries to tell Granny but she is not believed and Granny sends for fierce Uncle Hugh to take her away. Thing get worse; after a pony runs away with her and a tree nearly falls on her in a thunderstorm, Lucy is imprisoned in Norwich. However help is on hand from a mysterious source, and Uncle Hugh turns out to be quite different from the way in which Lucy had remembered him.