Fate catches up with John, an English academic vacationing in France. When he meets a French aristocrat who is his physical double, he agrees to change places with the Comte de Gue for a week--only to learn that he is being used as a decoy for forces threatening to destroy the Comte's family.
Hidden between distant cliffs, in some remote place visited by wolf hunters, bandits, ambushers, Carlists, sorceresses, maquis, rally drivers, ghosts, beasts and demons, the Clavell farmhouse clings to the earth like a tick. It is a house inhabited by women, and where a single day contains centuries of memories. Those of Joana, who made a pact to find a husband that inaugurated an apparently cursed progeny. Those of Bernadeta, whose eyelashes are missing, and who ended up seeing what she shouldn't. Those of Margarida, who instead of a whole heart has one of three quarters. Or those of Blanca, who was born without a tongue, and she doesn't speak, she just watches. These women, and more, are preparing a party today.