Set in the Spanish colonial era, a doomed love affair takes place between a young girl who is thought to be possessed and the priest who is sent to oversee her exorcism.
When she is bitten by a rabid dog in colonial South America, twelve-year-old Sierva María is sent to a convent to endure torturous therapies and meets bookish Father Cayetano Delaura, with whom she shares a doomed affair.