Every dusk, seven lamps are lit along the verandah. Only six of them are lit by a human hand. Kerala, June 2005. Revathi Panicker, a restoration architect who counts everything and is afraid of water, receives a letter from the grandmother she has not seen in twenty-two years: come to Mannathara before I die. The house stands on a small island in the backwaters, cut off by the monsoon, with a dead telephone, a rotten staircase, and an uncle who is very glad to see her. Her grandmother is failing. A developer wants the old house signed away. And on her first night Revathi hears someone humming a lullaby from a wing that, by her own tape measure, is fifteen feet shorter inside than it is outside. Everyone in Mannathara has a reason to keep a door shut. She has a notebook, a bad ankle, and twelve days. Some houses keep secrets. This one keeps a light burning for someone.