As a child, Jacob Magellan Portman has been fascinated with his grandfather Abraham's stories about surviving as a Jew during World War II, running from man-eating monsters, and living with peculiar children in a secret home guarded by "a wise old bird." As Jacob grows older, he begins to doubt the stories until the arrival of his grandfather's death. Blood-strewn, exhausted, and lying in his back garden on the outskirts of Florida Woods, Abraham's last words are a mystery: "...find the bird in the loop on the other side of the old man's grave on September 3, 1940, and tell them what happened."
