From the Dust Returned

In an attic filled with dust and memories, a ten-year-old boy named Timothy visits his A Thousand Times Great Grandmère, an ancient Egyptian mummy named Nef. The visit is prompted by the upcoming Homecoming, a massive gathering of their supernatural Family. Timothy offers her a drop of ancient wine and asks her to tell him the story of how their Family and their strange House came to be. She agrees, and her whispered voice begins the tale.

The House, Grandmère explains, was not built but arrived, assembled overnight on a hill in upper Illinois by a powerful storm. For years, the magnificent structure stood empty, its presence inspiring the growth of a town nearby. The first inhabitant to arrive was Anuba, a royal cat from the tomb of Ramases, whose presence magically ignited fires in every hearth. The second was Cecy, a young woman known as “The Sleeper Who Dreams.” From her bed of dust in the High Attic, Cecy can send her mind out into the world, inhabiting animals, objects, and even people to experience their lives. Lonely and isolated, she yearns to fall in love.

To fulfill her desire, Cecy psychically possesses the body of a nineteen-year-old farm girl named Ann Leary. She forces the unwilling Ann to go to a dance with a young man, Tom, allowing Cecy to experience the joys of dancing and a first kiss. Before she departs Ann's body, Cecy compels her to write a note giving Tom Cecy's own name and address in the nearby town of Green Town, asking him to visit her "friend" someday. Tom crumples the paper but unconsciously keeps it. Grandmère then recounts Timothy's own origin. He is a mortal, found as an infant in a basket on the doorstep with a note labeling him "HISTORIAN." His adoptive parents, the gaunt Father and the ethereal Mother, are shocked to discover he has a reflection, unlike them. Mother insists on keeping him, and Cecy psychically welcomes him, sensing his purpose. Timothy grows up with his companions, Arach the spider and a ghost mouse from an Egyptian tomb.

The narrative jumps to the present, on the night of the great Homecoming. Family members travel from all over the world in various forms, such as wolves, bats, and blowing leaves, to gather at the House for All Hallows' Eve. Timothy, now ten, feels like an outsider due to his mortality, which the Family regards as an "illness." He meets his Uncle Einar, who has large green wings and takes him on a thrilling flight. During the party, Timothy desperately tries to fit in. Cecy possesses his body to help him perform a series of chaotic acts to imitate his relatives, but the prank ends in humiliation when she reveals her presence through his mouth. Timothy flees to the barn, ashamed. At dawn, the relatives depart, promising to meet again in Salem in 2009. As a peace offering, Cecy allows Timothy to briefly inhabit their bodies to experience their flight.

After the Homecoming, four of Timothy's cousins, Peter, William, Philip, and Jack, are left as bodiless souls when their physical forms are destroyed in a barn fire. Their spirits become trapped inside Cecy's head. The Family deems this improper and forces the ancient Nile River Grandpère to house their four rowdy spirits within his mind. Soon after, a "second Homecoming" begins as other relatives flee persecution and disbelief in Europe, leading the Family to hold a council to define themselves and strategize against the modern world's "figment war" of disbelief. Among them is a "ghastly passenger," a ghost who was fading away on the Orient Express until an English nurse, Miss Minerva Halliday, saved him by reinforcing belief through ghost stories. When her physical body dies, her spirit joins him on his journey. Timothy suggests they disperse across the country to survive, using Cecy's abilities to find safe havens.

Uncle Einar volunteers to be the first to relocate. A flashback reveals he lost his ability to fly safely at night after crashing into a power line. He married a mortal woman, Brunilla Wexley, and found a new purpose flying during the day disguised as a giant green kite for his children. Timothy also learns of Angelina Marguerite, a relative who ages backward. The Family unearths her from her grave as a beautiful young woman. She explains to Timothy that she must constantly travel, growing younger until she is eventually reborn into a new womb. She gives him a kiss that awakens new feelings in him before she departs.

The Family's existence is threatened when a malevolent relative, John the Unjust, returns. Denied shelter, he threatens to expose them to the town unless Cecy uses her powers to ease his tormented mind. When she evades him, he goes to the sheriff. Cecy possesses the sheriff to confuse John, but not before he shouts the Family's name and location, which the sheriff writes down. John returns to the House and confronts Cecy's sleeping body, but his inner turmoil causes him to drop dead. A Thousand Times Great Grandmère, Nef, summons Timothy and warns him that a mob is coming with torches. The Family begins a mass exodus. As they flee, the spirits in the chimneys unleash a torrential rainstorm that douses the mob's fires but leaves the House a half-ruined shell. Timothy escapes, carrying Nef's light, bundled mummy, and gets a ride from a farmer, claiming his bundle is just old newspapers.

Years later, the House is a ruin. Tom, the young man from Cecy's past, arrives. Drawn to the house, he enters and calls Cecy's name as the door shuts behind him. In the final chapter, Timothy, now a boy, brings Nef's mummy to a museum curator, D. W. Alcott. He offers her as a gift, explaining that she is “The One Who Remembers” the history of death and that this knowledge must be preserved. He asks only for permission to visit her and for the curator to listen to her stories. The novel closes as the curator leans in and Timothy says, "Listen."