Ofelia is the daughter of photographer Miguel and of deceased circus artist Lea. When her father is hospitalised with a nervous breakdown, she decides to find out the reason and in doing so discovers the truth about the relationship between her parents and the true fate of her mother.
Adriana and her mother left Brumal, a strange and remote village, and moved to the city while still a child. Once Adriana's mother dies, she's marked by memories and intense nostalgia for her hometown, and returns to Brumal.
A young bank clerk is transferred, in view of his special way of being, to a branch for misfits, where he will meet a whole series of very strange characters.
At the end of the Civil War, a Union soldier is released from prison and travels with a fellow prisoner to Missouri where his travelling companion is shot and hung for horse stealing. California decides to take the dead companion's belongings to his family's ranch, where he falls in love with his friend's sister. But then the "ghosts" of the war return in an unexpected way haunting him again.
