After Lewis Barnavelt’s parents die he movies in with his uncle Jonathan. They live together in New Zebedee, Michigan, in a big house where Lewis quickly becomes comfortable and he becomes acquainted with a woman named Florence. Things are not as they seem in the house, and Lewis realizes that his uncle is a warlock and that Florence is a powerful witch. There is a constant ticking clock that can be heard everywhere in the house, and no one knows what it is or where it came from.
Jonathan tries hiding the ticking of the clock by hanging up several clocks all over the house, in every room. The previous owners of the house, Selenna and Issac Izard were dealing with evil, black magic, but that is all Jonathan knows about the house, and he doesn’t know where the ticking is coming from. Lewis continues living on the life of a normal 10-year-old, and he starts going to a new school. He feels insecure about his body and his weight, but he manages to catch the eye of one of the boys in class, Tardy. One day, as Lewis wants to impress Tardy, he causes the moon to eclipse. Tardy doesn’t believe that it was Lewis that did it, and instead says that it was purely a trick of the eye.
Lewis promises Tardy that he will raise the dead, and he tries to do just that, on the night of Halloween. He happens to stand in front of the tomb of Selenna, and she is risen from the dead, though Tardy doesn’t believe what he sees. Lewis confronts Selenna and is saved by Florence. They also learn that the clock was made to end the world, though Selenna is the only one with the power to do it. The trio finally manage to find the clock, and together they destroy both it and Selenna.
In the end, we learn that Lewis has a new friend named Rose Rita Pottinger, a girl who knows everything about cannons.
