The 18th century ends in Cartagena de Indias. A very young white girl, Sierva María, daughter of the Marquis of Casalduero, who, due to her parents' neglect, has grown up in the shanties of the mansion's slaves, speaks their languages and behaves like them, is bitten on the ankle by a rabid market dog. Thus begins the dramatic adventure that the rebellious girl will experience, falling into the clutches of the Inquisition. The young clerical investigator Cayetano Delaura takes on the task of determining whether the girl is truly possessed by demons and inevitably becomes possessed himself by the demon of love for her.
The author-journalist-narrator discovers this story on October 26, 1949, when the editor-in-chief of his newspaper sends him to see if there is any news in the evacuation of the crypts of the ancient Santa Clara monastery. He is present at the moment when a beautiful, lifelike mane of hair bursts out from one of the crypts, bringing to his mind one of the stories his grandmother used to tell him...
The slave trade, feudalism, ecclesiastical omnipotence, the libertinism and Dionysian nature of love, persecuted Jewish intellectuals, the medicine of the time, superstitions and prejudices, exorcisms and madness, are the protagonists of this fascinating chronicle of the meeting of two people who loved each other deeply, against all the sacred and profane of their society, political power, and ecclesiastical authority of their time.