Fifteen-year-old Felix is intelligent, sarcastic and inclined to cynicism. Very much a loner, with limited social skills, he has only one friend — Ellen, a fellow Goth. Felix has a brother — twelve- year-old Oscar — who broke his neck while the pair were playing and is now in a wheelchair. The family has collapsed under the strain of Oscar's disability and, although they are close, Felix feels responsible for Oscar's accident. He has developed an interest in witchcraft and hopes one day to use magic to help his brother walk again.
When Felix cast the spell that dumped the boys in a parallel world, he was not aware there would be consequences. The spell was cast to heal Oscar, which it did, but Felix did not expect it to erase his existence. Felix befriends Oscar, protecting him from schoolyard bullies, and his mother is nicer to him in this reality. He regains the family he lost after Oscar's accident and, demon aside, he is much happier. Felix's magic skills — aided by a talisman given to him by 'new-ager' Phoebe — grow stronger and help protect the 'nowhere boys'.
