James reads by his open bedroom window at night. Other lives and other worlds beckon. One of these worlds is conjured by old Mr. Woodford, a physicist who looks more like an accountant and who constructs a strange black box. One day, when James slips into the laboratory, he makes a dreadful discovery and learns to master a great power. Who is the little boy in Mexico who scratches pictures of aeroplanes in the dust? How will the girl caught in a wartime bomb blast be reunited with her parents? And why does James sit alone in his island of silence? This novel poses a new question on every page and draws us into an ever-widening series of mysteries, into magical, dangerous worldsin and out of time.