When Davy's mother deserts their family, Davy's father packs his children into a rickety old car and takes them on a vacation. They drive to their mysterious old grandparents' house in the sprawling Welsh countryside, a place so rural that running water is a novelty. It is there that Davy learns he has the gift. He has always seen the pictures--images in his head that tell of the future or the past--but his grandmother explains that the gift is both a remarkable power and a terrible curse. It was the gift that killed Davy's great-uncle--and it is the gift that could save his life.

Seven years later, Davy is in high school, and for the first time he can remember, life is almost normal. But when he starts having troubling visions of his father's new employer he knows that only he can save his family from destruction.