Chip Linton, an airline pilot suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after a tragic crash from which he is one of only nine survivors, retreats with his family to a Victorian house in New Hampshire, but peace proves elusive. Why do the town's "herbalists," a group of gardening women who all have the first names of plants and flowers, take such an intense interest in the family, particularly Chip and Emily's ten-year-old twin daughters? And what is behind the mysterious door bolted shut in the basement? The house and neighborhood around it become scenes of threatening paranormal visitations and the family is thrust into a realm where uncertainty is the only norm. --Library Journal