Hugh and Margaret Grainger have rented a lovely old house near an excellent golf course. At the bottom of the garden is a strange, well-kept, but untenented thatched cottage.

A visitor to the Graingers has a strange and overwhelming presentiment on passing the cottage that the house is actually not empty. Indeed, on several occasions he seems to see a light in the cottage. And one evening he thinks he sees a figure entering the house. But every attempt to investigate confirms that the cottage is abandoned.

Margaret Grainer is an enthusiast for communicating with the spirit world via the planchette. When she starts receiving peculiar messages from someone calling himself the gardener everyone is intrigued but sceptical. But then the gardener announces his wish to enter the house... and catapults the inhabitants of the house into a strange and terrifying spiral of events.