Tom Lee Parker is a fourteen-year-old boy going through his awkward teen years. What makes adolescence tougher for Tom, though, is that he is a preacher's kid. His father, Reverend Parker, has pastored the church in his hometown Tom's whole life, and Tom has gotten into plenty of scrapes at school because of it. For Tom, church is a Sunday morning chore-and bore. Tom just wants to find adventure, and he soon does in a run-down old mansion that is supposedly haunted but might also hide a fortune in gold. Tom and three of his friends decide to investigate, hoping to solve a hundred-year-old riddle. Along the way, they discover hardships and danger in their quest. They must battle unseen forces in order to succeed, but they also learn there is more to this "treasure" than they could have imagined. Tom sets off to escape his humdrum life as a preacher's kid and find gold. Instead, he finds a different treasure-a treasure of the heart.