Set in England 1907, Alice detests being turned into a proper English young lady. Longing for Africa and her parents, she is desperately lonely, until she meets Bessie, the strange little scullery maid. Bessie feels she doesn't belong either and likes to think she is a changeling princess of the pagans, the sinister beings who live deep inside the strange mound in the garden. The trouble is the pagans don't seem to want to have anything to do with Bessie. But Alice knows all about evil spirits, she even managed to escape a witch once, back in Africa. If anyone can make the pagans take poor Bessie back she can.
