 Maria learns that her aunt Oriana has died and willed her a crumbling and remote Venezuelan hacienda where Maria spent a short time as a girl just entering puberty. Maria goes to the hacienda to prepare the place for sale; while going through her aunt s papers, she recalls her visit years  before. In flashbacks, we see the young Maria trying to sort out why Oriana never leaves the hacienda, what secret may be in Oriana s past, and who the mysterious Sergio was. The young Maria, as she learns things, imagines her aunt s youth, cruel father, and first love. After these reveries within reveries, Maria, now a grown woman, makes one more discovery.