While staying with her mother's godmother, Minty finds herself drawn to a mysterious sundial which takes her back in time and links her life to that of two unhappy children she meets in two different centuries.
While on vacation, the eccentric and talented Bagthorpe family tries to contact the ghosts of their reputedly haunted house, pursues Cousin Daisy's elusive goat, and in general stirs up the quiet Welsh countryside.
Polly Flint, a girl who sees things other people can't, finds herself involved with the "time gypsies" of Grimstone, inhabitants of a lost village who have become trapped in a time not their own.