Twelve-year-old Anika's life is turned upside down when she is forced to leave Edinburgh, Scotland, where she lived at the university with her father, and move in with her grandmother on a country farm. But leaving Edinburgh is not so easy. Mishaps place her alone in a dark alley, where a well-dressed cat named Edward finds her and offers to guide her to safety.

Anika is thoroughly seeped in Scottish Literature and is delighted to find that Edward is as quick with a quotation as she is. But safety is not so easily found in Edward's company. His brother and three sisters seem to have other plans for Anika. The cats lead her through a magical mansion within their alley. She finds delights, excitement, and great peril in the mansion, with the writings of great authors of Scottish history always as her guide.