When her parents disappear, 12 -year-old Raven McKay is put into foster care with Kitty Stromsoe in the town of Grave's Pass. It's not an ordinary town. It's a town where the living and the dead live side by side, but few wear their identity on their sleeves. All her parents have left Raven is a battered beige suitcase with a faded black butterfly sticker and a note saying not to open the suitcase until the right time. But can she resist? And who among the living and the dead are her friends?