In a rural village colonized by Germans, little Ana watches a play about the history of the Thiltapes. It is a dangerous animal that lives in the forest, and no one knows its real form. Two hundred years earlier, a botanist who writes about the region hears about this same animal. The stories intertwine, both in an obsessive search for the imaginary Thiltapes, while at the same time facing their own demons: the weakened botanist eager for a discovery that will justify his trip and Ana intrigued by her father, suspected of having committed a brutal crime against a neighbor’s cow.