Irish orphans Molly, fourteen, and Kip, ten, travel to England to work as servants in a crumbling manor house where nothing is quite what it seems to be, and soon the siblings are confronted by a mysterious stranger and the secrets of the cursed house.

When she incurs Neptune's wrath by finding a diamond ring buried under rocks in the ocean, Emily is put under a curse that will force her to choose to be either a mermaid or a human and split up her parents forever.

The story of Sleeping Beauty "has been told many times and in many ways. But always the maiden finds out that she is a princess--a princess who has been cursed by a dark fairy to prick her finger on a spindle and fall into an eternal sleep ... But the power of good endures, as her true love defeats the fire-breathing dragon and awakens the princess with true love's first kiss. The two live happily ever after. And yet this is only half the story. So...