Part 1: Isobelle, a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts, is staying with her uncle, a UMass professor, over summer break. Uncle—as Isobelle calls him—is an immigrant from Congo; he and his son, Mbuyi—Isobelle’s cousin—moved to the U.S. when Mbuyi was seven years old. When he isn’t teaching, Uncle travels the country to interview other Congolese immigrants and collect their stories, particularly those about witchcraft. Every night before Isobelle goes to bed, Uncle presses his fingers to her forehead and hangs a necklace of beads from her door. He also instructs Isobelle not to leave her bedroom between midnight and dawn.

Though Isobelle is confused by these apparent superstitions, she complies because she hears something, in Mbuyi’s old room, pounding on the door and whispering raspily in French. Uncle says he adopted a dog and keeps it in there, but Isobelle knows better—back in Congo, dogs are guards, not pets.

Isobelle misses Mbuyi, who had always been a kind and supportive older brother figure to her before he mysteriously disappeared a few years ago. At the age of 23, he had gone back to Congo for the first time, but the day after he returned to the States, he went missing. Isobelle has also long wondered about Mbuyi’s name—it is traditionally a name given to an older twin, with the younger twin being named Kanku. When she asked Mbuyi about this once, he was evasive and he and Uncle got into a fight.

One night, Isobelle is transcribing a recording of one of Uncle’s interviews when the grandfather clock strikes twelve—but fortunately, the clock is a couple minutes early. She finds Uncle asleep on the living room couch. She wakes him up and he takes her immediately to her room to perform his usual ritual. He tells her not to worry and leaves, but Isobelle hears his footsteps halt. Then she hears something fall to the floor.

Scared, Isobelle opens her door and checks to see if Uncle is okay. She finds him slumped at the bottom of the stairs—alive—but she smells something rotten approaching her. Kanku possesses her body, and the story’s perspective shifts to him.

Part 2: Growing up in Congo, Kanku—Mbuyi’s twin brother—seems to have supernatural powers. When his mother gets sick, Kanku spends all his time caring for her. But when her illness progresses and she dies, Kanku’s Baba (Isobelle’s uncle) blames him and his supposed magic for her death, calling him a witch.

Mbuyi and Kanku are very close, but when Baba moves to the U.S., he only takes Mbuyi with him, believing Kanku to be cursed. Although Mbuyi resists leaving without Kanku—trying to escape the car as Baba drives him away to the airport—Baba’s friends restrain him. The witch rumor spreads and no other family will take in Kanku, so he is forced to live on the streets, where he starves to death.

Now, Kanku lives as a spirit, able to invade other people’s bodies and push their spirits out. However, he has a limited lifespan in each body; after a few days, it starts to rot and decompose and he has to locate a new body. When Mbuyi returns to Congo over a decade after he left, Kanku chooses to possess his body—though he hesitates since he still loves his brother.

Kanku—in Mbuyi’s body—comes to America for the first time, but Baba quickly sees through the ruse and locks Kanku in Mbuyi’s old room. Mbuyi’s body takes longer to decompose—it is healthy for two years—but eventually it does.

One night, Baba starts climbing the stairs as midnight approaches. Kanku, in Mbuyi’s now dilapidated body, takes this chance, leaves the room, and tries to kill his father. But he cannot—Baba has some kind of protection. When Kanku sees Isobelle leave her room, he decides her body might give him new insight. He possesses her and uses her memories to find the necklace of beads. He also sees a doll with his/Mbuyi’s hair sewn on—through which Baba has been able to control Kanku’s spirit. Kanku throws the hair into the fire, nullifying Baba’s shield, and presses his thumb into Baba’s windpipe, killing him. But, seeing Baba’s peaceful aura in death, Kanku immediately has regrets, realizing he took his own brother’s body for an empty act of revenge.

Part 3: Finally, the perspective shifts to Mbuyi, who had returned to Congo in order to look for Kanku. He has always regretted leaving Kanku behind; he didn’t think Kanku was serious when he would say Baba was planning on abandoning him. When Kanku possesses his body in Congo, Mbuyi’s spirit remains close by, accompanying him back to America and watching out for “death signals”—cellular cues that tell the body to shut down. But Kanku never notices Mbuyi’s presence, and two years in, Mbuyi misses a signal and his body starts to decompose.

When Kanku possesses Isobelle’s body, Mbuyi is able to communicate with her spirit and they agree to push back into her body. In the struggle, Mbuyi convinces Kanku—who has already killed Baba—to let Isobelle’s spirit regain control of her own body. Isobelle resumes living as herself, and Mbuyi and Kanku—and their mom—are joined together in the afterlife as spirits.