After the annual graduate Christmas party, Emily’s friend and lab partner, Beth Wong, takes a dive out of a ten-storey window. Emily is not convinced that her friend’s death was a suicide, and she takes it upon herself to find out what’s really behind it. After spending time recuperating from the shock with Rusty Monoghan–her landlord, friend, and sometime surrogate mother–Emily returns to the university and is convinced to continue Beth’s work in Dr. Mullarcant’s little shop of horrors.