The ten-year-old girl Emma Wright is admitted in the Hollybrooke mental institution after being accused of killing her mother and sister. She claims that an evil supernatural entity named Stickman has killed her family after being summed by a poem, and she has frequent nightmares with him. Her only friend is the teenager Jeremy, who also knows the Stickman.
After several years, Dr. Fenton replaces her former doctor and implements a different treatment to Emma. She also learns how to trap the Stickman. One year later, she is considered healed and is sent to a foster home managed by Mrs. Hill. She immediately befriends the teenager Paige and is introduced to the rebel Liv; Tess; Andrea and Kate.
However, Liv opens her bag, takes a handwritten poem and reads it loud. Now Emma advises that Liv has summoned the Stickman and they will all be dead, unless she succeeds to trap the being again. But she needs to meet Jeremy first and she returns to Hollybrooke.