 Walter Gilman, a student of mathematics and folklore at Miskatonic University, rents an attic room in the "Witch House", a house in Arkham, Massachusetts that is rumored to be cursed.The house once harboured Keziah Mason, an accused witch who disappeared mysteriously from a Salem jail in 1692.Gilman discovers that, for the better part of two centuries, many of the attic's occupants have died prematurely.