It’s been fifteen years since J. J. Liddy returned from T’ir na n’Og, the land of eternal youth in Irish lore. In that time, he has become a husband, father of four, and celebrated fiddler. But his world is not as perfect as it appears. His uncontrollable daughter Jenny is more comfortable outdoors and shoeless than she is at school. His son Donal has his mind wrapped around something that he won’t discuss with anyone but an elderly neighbor. And then there’s the presence of a strange white goat on a hilltop near their home. Jenny says it talks to her. Music tied together Kate Thompson’s first book about the Liddy family, The New Policeman (Greenwillow, 2007), but despite J. J.’s desire for harmony, his family and environment are in a state of discord now. The world-renowned musician must use all of his senses to recognize the sour note. What J. J. doesn’t know is that Jenny has learned she is a changeling from the fairy world. The goat she speaks with is a Púka, and the mythical creature leads Jenny to distrust her human family and the world in which she lives. As Jenny makes a dangerous deal with the Púka, J. J. takes an even greater risk that returns him to T’ir na n’Og. When Donal’s secret project is at last revealed, the Liddys are able to save their family, and the entire world, from a destructive underground force by rightfully crowning the last of the high kings of Ireland. (Ages 11–15)

Traveling to the land of eternal youth was the only way J.J. Liddy could stop time from leaking from his world to T'ir na n'Og. But fifteen years after returning from the land of the faeries, J.J. wonders if that long-ago visit is responsible for the strange things now happening to those around him.

Why does his daughter Jenny roam barefoot through the wilds, when she should be in school? When did the mysterious white goat begin to patrol the hillside? What is the secret project that J.J.'s son Donal is attempting? And who is the ghost guarding the stone beacon at the top of the mountain—and why has Jenny befriended him?

Finding answers to these questions will take J.J. and his family on the most important and dangerous journey of their lives. If they fail, it will undo all the good that J.J. accomplished fifteen years ago. But if they succeed, they will defeat the forces that are gathering to destroy all of mankind, and finally secure the future of the last of the high kings.