Lately Athena has been spending all her spare time in her grave. Her parents—owners of a small-town cemetery in upstate New York—are proud of her devoutness, but her little sister, Laurel, can’t understand it. Laurel still has one more year before her grave-opening, before she’s expected to fulfill the Tenets of Grave Keeping by spending time in her grave as well, and she’s dreading it. Just as school begins, unexpected visitors derail the girls’ secluded lives, encroaching on the safe confines of home and forcing the sisters out into the town. Athena—a professional high school loner—grapples with a newfound enemy and, even more surprising, her first best friend. And home-schooled Laurel, shy to the point of paralysis, finds herself face-to-face with a runaway kid, hiding out in an abandoned grave.