The advertisement appeared in the paper exactly as it had appeared every sixty years since the house was built: GOVERNESS WANTED. TWO CHILDREN. ROOM AND BOARD. BLACKWATER DOWNS, THE MOORS.

Abigail Willoughby was nineteen when she arrived. Mable was five. Dalton was eight. Their parents, the Buckingshires, were traveling abroad.

That was sixty-three years ago.

The children have been five and eight since 1742. Their parents died of fever and never came home. The house keeps them frozen, preserved, waiting for a mother and father who will never walk through the door. But they need someone living to see them, to believe in them, or they fade to nothing.

Every governess falls in love with them. Every governess stays. And when a governess grows too old to serve, the house transforms her into staff. Mr. Barnes, the stiff-backed b ...