A family is killed in their bungalow near Lake Ontario in 1950. The case remains unsolved and has since been closed. Some speculate that it was the father who killed everyone out of jealousy for his wife’s affairs. Their one surviving child has since lived in an orphanage. One day, the man finalizes his paperwork to adopt him as a foster kid, which was his and his wife’s idea in order to raise a family in their middle age. By the time they adopt him, he is already fifteen.

The man picks the foster kid up from the orphanage, and they drive home. They talk for a little bit, introducing themselves to each other. The man shares that he has a cat, and the foster kid cracks a few jokes that are hard for the man to understand, as they may be inside jokes from his deceased family.

At home, the man shows his cat to the boy, which he recalls as being an orphaned cat he and his wife took in. Right away, the cat takes a liking to him. Soon, the man calls his wife over, and she reveals that she has been reading in the book stacks. She then offers her condolences for what happened to his family, and the man tells him that his mother used to be a regular customer at their book barn.

From then on, the foster kid is tasked with helping with upkeep in the book barn, as well as some other chores which the man and his wife are a little too old to regularly do. As time goes on, the foster kid feels affinity for his new mother, and they often read together in the book stacks. One day, a regular customer comes by, and the man catches up with him downstairs. Apparently his wife has passed.

One night, the cat peers out from the book barn. She overhears the man and his wife talking. They talk about how the foster kid’s mother was a regular customer at the book barn, after which they discuss the unsolved nature of his case. Soon enough, they spot the cat hiding in a thorny bush of roses.

The man heads out for a bookseller’s conference, and the cat is confined after having made a big mess. The foster kid and his new mother resolve to clean it before the next day, when the man will return. Suddenly, the woman has an idea, which is to go to the bungalow where the foster kid’s parents were killed. Later that evening, they take a forty-five minute drive down to the bungalow and scope it out. The foster kid is unsure of what they’re doing there, to which the woman explains that she wants to talk to them through some sort of occult medium. With a breadknife, she hacks off a piece of a crusty loaf to eat. Eventually, the woman sees something past the foster kid’s shoulder. Paralyzed with fear, she sees something horrific. The foster kid then takes her breadknife.

When the man finally comes home, he rants to his cat about the traffic. He wonders where his wife has gone. The foster kid, meanwhile, explains to him that she left without saying where she was going. Through the floorboards, the cat overhears the conversation they have. It comes downstairs and sees the foster kid with the breadknife, after which the man asks him about what he’s done. The cat pounces on the foster kid right away. Later that day, the man pets his cat, apologizing to it for so much neglect.