Ivy Templeton is a nearly eleven year old girl, living with her parents, Janice and Bill Templeton, in New York. The parents notice a stranger stalking them over the course of a few weeks, and discover, over lunch with him, that his name is Elliot Hoover, and that he is convinced their daughter is a reincarnation of his daughter Audrey Rose, who died in a fiery car accident, along with his wife, two minutes before Ivy was born. Hoover had come to believe this through information given to him by two clairvoyant psychics. The husband asks a friend of his, an attorney, to hide in their apartment to hear Hoovers full story to build a case against him, but when Hoover speaks Audrey's name out loud, Ivy hears him from her room and enters an altered state where she cannot be calmed down without the assistance of Hoover.