A friendless, misfit boy unwittingly becomes a wizard and ends up having to save the town he is desperately trying to escape.

All Goff wanted was for his essay on witchcraft to be good enough to win a scholarship to a private academy far away from Spraksville, the miserable, spooky little town he is stuck in. But, if he'd known that Spraksville's history of witchcraft was more than just folklore, he never would have experimented with casting a spell in the cemetery at midnight as research to make the essay great.

When his spellcasting unexpectedly sparks some real magic, the gargoyles make Goff a wizard, and he becomes the mortal enemy of Harkland Mathers XIII, the most powerful dark wizard in centuries—an evil sorcerer plotting to become invincible by performing an ancient ritual on Halloween night that will destroy the entire town and everyone in it.

While navigating the confusing world of magic, keeping himself and his newfound friends alive, and trying to stop the ritual, Goff discovers his fate is part of a plot hatched thirteen generations ago to make him the chosen one...chosen to be the clueless misfit wizard who will have no chance of stopping the ritual that will make this Halloween night the last night of freedom the world ever knows.