Silas Umber has finally come into his own as the Undertaker of Lichport when an invitation arrives: a mysterious word carved into the door of his house. Intrigued, Silas ventures beyond the marshes to visit Arvale Manor, the ancestral estate of the Umber family.

There, he discovers that the extended Umber family may be dead, but they are not gone: Indeed, many of them still dwell in Arvale, waiting for an Undertaker to return and preside over the Door Doom, an archaic rite that grants a terrible power to summon and bind the dead in judgment.

As Silas assumes the mantle of Janus, the Watcher at the Threshold, deep below the earth in the catacombs and sunken towers, grim spirits grow restless at his arrival--hungry for freedom and eager for vengeance against a family with a long history of harsh judgments. As the only living Undertaker at Arvale Manor, Silas must put an ancient wrong to right, and accept that even a house of ghosts can be haunted by its past--for in matters of family, we are who we were.