Oscar and Josefine are celebrating Midsummer with Oscar's grandparents in the country. A demon, Thorsen, gives Josefine the gift of enabling her to travel back in time. Visiting Oscar's family in the 17th century, Josefine saves a sickly young girl from the stake. But now the villagers see Josefine as a witch and want to burn her at the stake instead.

Three siblings ingeniously avoid being sent off to a children's home while their solo-mother serves a short sentence in a prison for shoplifting. Rather than have the news leak out and have to be escorted off with the eccentric welfare officer, they invent a 'never present' dad who is looking after them.