The Phantom Piper

"I thought it was a dream, but there was a piper. He was playing a pibroch. He stood up on a high crag till all the grown-ups reached him, then he went off. They went with him. Followed him like sheep. Followed the music he was making."

The children of Canlish Glen are abandoned. They know there is only one way to get their parents and families back, but if they do not succeed by Hogmanay, history may repeat itself and all the adults will die.

Then the strangers arrive. They come out of nowhere - as the parents went into nowhere - and they are dangerous...