Ben Mason is 13 years old, he lives near Stevenage with his mum and dad and two younger sisters. He goes to a local Comprehensive school (Abbot's Grove). He is a very ordinary boy from a very ordinary family. Only one thing sets him apart: Ben suffers from a very rare condition; he is, like his father and grandfather before him, a... WishCaster. There are times in his life when the symptoms of this illness steel over him: he gets a headache, he can't concentrate and he feels oddly detached from reality. These are the times when he does everything he can to avoid making a Wish... or even the merest thought of a Wish Because for Ben, Wishes can come true and, despite what most people might think, this is not necessarily a good thing During a family holiday to Egypt, Ben mistakes these symptoms for the effects of having been out in the relentless sun for too long; his guard is down, and before he realises what is happening he finds himself back in ancient Egypt; a servant in pharaoh's royal household. In an effort to discover the reason the Wish has taken him there, he begins to piece together fragments of clues and snippets of conversation and soon begins to believe that he may well have to commit cold-blooded murder in order to bring the Wish to its conclusion; horrified by the thought, he desperately begins to search for another solution to find his way home