On a summer visit to Missouri, Andrew Joseph Tyler can feel the presence of his ancestors on the creaking stairs and in the shadowy corners of Great Aunt Blythe's old house. He is especially intrigued to learn of an earlier Andrew who lived at the beginning of the century and apparently died young of diphtheria. Drew's fantasies of ghosts and the past become all too real when the earlier Andrew appears one night. The boys realize they have somehow entered a moment in time between life and death. If they change places for a while, the earlier Andrew may have a chance to live. So Drew agrees to go back to 1910, where he assumes the earlier Andrew's identity. Drew fits into the past better than he expected, but the more he is accepted by Andrew's family, the more anxious he becomes. Nightly marbe games with Andrew decide who's to stay in 1910. As Drew struggles to win, he fears he may never be able to return to his own world. Mary Downing Hahn's latest ghost story is a tale of family ties that cross the flow of time--and of a unique friendship between two boys whose lives are eerily intertwined.
