 When her mother dies in a riot between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists, she is sent to live with her deceased father's relatives in Grizehayes, a fictional fortress in the north of England.Makepeace has the inherited trait that allows her to store the spirits of recently deceased people or animals inside herself, like the rest of her father's family.The elders at Grizehayes store the spirits of their notable deceased family members inside living vessels.