It's a warm evening in September when nine-year-old Danny Yates comes back from the dead.

He walks into town half-starved and silent, ten months after he and his best friend Will Keefe were presumed drowned. And when Danny does finally speak, he swears that he's not Danny. He's Will.

Danny's mother is convinced that her boy has come back wrong. More than that, she thinks the town itself is now at risk from whatever dark force returned her son. Chief of Police John Deacon is more interested in how the sinister disappearance of two boys could have been written off as a tragic accident, and who was responsible.

What happened to Danny to make him take on his friend's name, his personality? And does Danny's return mean there's a chance that Will is still alive?