Time of The Ghost - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

The book begins with the words "There's been an accident! Something's wrong!" - and something is. There is a ghost. She does not know who she is, or how she died, or quite where she is. All she knows is that there has been a terrible accident.

The as-yet unnamed heroine finds herself attracted to a large building, a boys' boarding school, which she finds to be strangely familiar. After a little detective work, the disembodied spirit concludes that she is Sally Melford, one of a quartet of eccentric sisters (Imogen, Cart, Fenella and Sally) who live at the school and are neglected by their overworked parents, both of whom teach at the school. Their father, only known as Himself, is the headmaster, and his wife, Phyllis, is the school nurse. Both of them are constantly busy with school business, and leave their daughters to fend for themselves.

As the plot continues, evidence of time-travel begins to emerge. In the present day, the adult, university-age Sally is in a hospital, badly injured after her abusive boyfriend threw her from a speeding car. Some part of her has journeyed back seven years into the past, where, with the help of her sisters and their schoolboy friends, she must undo a rash bargain with the powerful and ancient goddess, Monigan.

The Worship of Monigan is a game that the sisters made up, in which an old rag doll supposedly represents the goddess Monigan. Although Cart, Fenella and Imogen treat it as somewhere between a belief and a game, the ghost discovers that the fourth, Sally, is romantically involved with a student at the school, the enigmatic fifth-former Julian Addiman, and both of them take the Worship of Monigan very, very seriously.

After a deal of detective work, Sally (in her ghostly form) discovers the truth. The young Sally had dedicated herself to Monigan in a midnight ritual, with the help of Julian. Monigan had taken her up on the offer, and had agreed that Sally would be hers in seven years time. The seven years are now up, and Monigan had attempted to call in the debt, in the form of the boyfriend (now revealed to be the same Julian Addiman) tossing her out of the car. However, Sally survived; and, with the help of her sisters and her childhood friends, she is determined to cheat Monigan, and take back her life.