Walter Kew hardly knows he's being haunted at first. His mother's voice comes so softly.

Soon, though, her voice speaks more clearly, luring him to a sad statue of the Little Match Girl in Anderson Park. Ther he finds amazing relics from his infancy - a mitten, tiny socks, a hospital bracelet - items too real to have come from beyond the grave, or so his friends Poco and Georgina suspect.

In this third story about the Investigators of the Unknown, questions of life and death present the most puzzling mysteries yet. Could Walter's mother still be alive? In that case, why does she continue to hide? Even Granny Docker, the boy's adoptive parent, won't tell him the true story of his life.

"You have to know where you came from or you can't go on," wise Poco tells Georgina. "You have to have stories about yourself."

Walter does go on, and with powerful imagination and a little help from Juliette the cat, makes some surprising discoveries.