 After the death of his beloved wife and daughter, hit by a truck in a snowing road upstate New York, the composer and music professor John Russell (George C. Scott) moves to Seattle to teach music in the local university. He leases a huge mansion in Chessman Park that belongs to the Historical Society and has been empty for twelve years. John hears some weird noises always at 6:00 AM and later he experiences the contact of the ghost of a child that lived many decades ago in the house. He researches the history of the house, and discloses a despicable secret.