It's a dream come true when thirteen-year-old Wallace Nutt finds out one day that his mother has finally landed her dream job at a university halfway across the country. Not only that, they'll be living rent-free in a beautiful, old Victorian house. Almost as soon as they've moved in, however, Wallace discovers the house harbors its own secrets and inhabitants. One of them is Reginald, who offers Wallace an irresistible opportunity: to see how his life could've turned out if his father hadn't gone missing several years earlier. But the choice he makes will not only endanger him and his mother, but also billions of others in this reality and beyond.