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.