Strieber returns to his youth to recount a summer he spent in a "secret school" in the woods near his childhood home. It was there that he learned the nine lessons that forever changed his life and prepared him for the chilling events narrated in his previous three books. His recollection was triggered by his first encounter in 1985, but for years still remained half-hidden in shadow. Only now has he begun to reconstruct these childhood summers spent in secret adventure, these summers that planted the seeds for his adult encounters with alien visitors.