Summary

After her best friend Jenna died in a car accident that involved Miranda and her brother as well, Miranda is suddenly with a new ability - an ability to see ghosts. Her brother, Rob, and herself move to York, England for a week-long family vacation, with both of their parents hoping that their children may move on from that horrific event. However for Miranda, it is far from easy, considering that York, England is one of the most haunted places on Earth. Across from her bedroom window at the home her family was staying, Miranda sees a ghost. His handsome features draws her in, and she is captivated by the coolness of his hand pressed on her window. She urges to meet him in person - or at least stay in the same room as him, with girlish dreams of talking, and kissing the mysteriously beautiful ghost. On the other hand, Miranda meets another boy named Nick that can see ghosts as well, and he takes her often to locations where he could show her some haunted areas of the town. He tells her that he senses his older brother's ghost in this town, and that he has returned to assist him. Strangely, as Miranda tries to find more about Nick's past, Rob's girlfriend's family inn, The White Boar, is vandalized repeatedly, with no form of forced entry. One day, her father takes Miranda to his friend, Lord Poole's house, where she finds out that Nick is actually one of his grandsons. She also discovers a peculiar painting of York getting burned to the ground. She is confused why Nick wouldn't tell his grandfather that he was in the town itself, with his grandfather, extremely lonely, living in his home. One night, a night before Miranda was to go back home, Nick tells her that he will pick her up at her house to take her to somewhere special. And to wait for him, even if he is late. As Miranda waited, she suddenly spotted Rob's girlfriend, Sarah, outside her window, in the room where the mysterious ghost was! She rushes to the White Boar to find both Rob and Sarah had found a passageway in the cellar of the inn, and that they suspected that the criminal must have used it to come in. Slowly, they piece together the puzzle, and Miranda realizes that Nick was planning on burning down York! Rushing through the passageway, she spots him in midway of painting an image before setting everything on fire. Miranda tells him that the ghost who had been commanding him to do all of the criminal acts had not been his brother, Richard, but the son of a criminal that died long ago, who is coming back to finish his father's work. But it is too late. The ghost forces the candles in the room to tip over, and spread fire on the blankets drenched in alcohol. The four teenagers are no match for an angry ghost. Sarah runs off to seek help, and Miranda realizes that if she dies here, that her spirit would be like many, just roaming around the town seeking help and in sorrow. The beautiful ghost that she had wished to know better, to be closer with, is the ghost that was going to burn down York, mainly the Minister, an important church in the town. The next day, she wakes up seeing her parents, overjoyed to have her alive, and hearing that her brother and Nick had survived the awful fire. At once, she rushes to Nick's room, and hears that he would be put in an institution to help him for a while, and that Lord Poole had been alerted that his grandson is alive. She kisses him, as she had to go the next day, and walks away. Lord Poole tells her that seeing ghosts is only temporary, and it happens because something had caused her to go into a sad and weak state, open to the sorrows of spirits and ghosts. Even after a while, she still sees ghosts, but she knows that one day, she would overcome it.