Seventeen year old Silas Umber's father, Amos, mysteriously disappeared a year ago. Unbeknownst to his son, Amos was an Undertaker, responsible for settling the accounts of the dead in the Shadowland, the states of limbo binding spirits to earth. With Amos gone, Silas and his mother, Dolores move back to Lichport, the town where his father worked to bring The Peace. When Dolores moves in with Amos's brother, Silas moves in to his father's office where he finds his Death Watch, the tool that allows the owner to see the dead, and inadvertently becomes the new Undertaker. Now Lichport's secrets are making themselves known to Silas and it is up to him to settle the town's hidden history. With the help of Mrs. Bowe, an old associate of his father's and Bea, a mysterious young woman with secrets of her own, Silas embarks on a path into the Shadowland to take up his new post and ultimately find his father, dead or alive.