Twelve year-old Archer Collins hates going to school. His fellow schoolmates, Billy "Crusher" Watson, Sammy "The Toad" Spencer and their gang of bullies frequently tease him. One morning while running away and hiding from them he misses his school bus. He decides to skip school but is afraid to go back home to face his mother.

A thunderstorm hits town and he finds himself on the doorstep of Fortune Manor, an eccentric and magical nursing home that his grandmother currently resides in. Archer pays his grandmother a surprise visit and becomes very attached to the place. She bestows him with a gift, a painting she had made for him and asks him to buy a nice frame for it and hang it in his room.

After departing Fortune Manor and getting into a bit more trouble he finds a mysterious antique shop that sells him a peculiar frame for his painting. That night he hangs the painting in his room and goes to sleep.

Archer travels into the painting that night and is immediately entranced by his adventure in another world except for one strange detail. Something or someone is following him. After the death of his dear grandmother he inherits all of her paintings and he becomes obsessed with finding a world where the shadow cannot follow.

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