Meet Nicholas Swift, a determined bachelor and a skeptical historian. His work is made of dispelling myths and shedding light on the solid body of fact. When he is told by the residents of a small village about a strange phenomenon that can be observed in the area, he dismisses these rumors as old wives' tales. Sooner than he knows, however, he is drawn into an adventure he neither expected nor wished for as he discovers a magical link between our world and another quite unlike it.