Charlie lives with her Nan in Deptford. In the early days of the Blitz they are bombed out and Charlie becomes separated from the only people she knows and trusts. Although just nine, she salvages what she can from the wreckage and determines to build herself a new life. All she has, however, are fragments of the real world, uncertain memories of life in a far-off land, images from all the books and comics she reads, and glimpses of other worlds that may or may not be real. Stealing food and dodging the authorities, watching ghost children play, she carves out a precarious niche in the ruins. But, just as she finds friendship and the prospect of security, she crosses the path of a monster who stalks and kills young girls in the blacked out streets. Determined to protect what she has fought so hard to create, Charlie sets out to destroy the one tangible element of all the evil that has blighted her young life. This is the first of a quartet of novels that take us through fragments of the twentieth century as they were and as they might have been. Powerful, rich, and imbued with a sense of magic, they offer a glimpse into the ways we cope when the world is torn apart around us.