Teacher Antek Liebmann leaves his life in Germany behind and rents a place in summery northern France. He learns from his landlord that a murderer is striking terror in the surrounding woods. Following a dark premonition, Antek is drawn into the undergrowth on one of his walks where he makes a dangerous discovery. He befriends his attractive neighbour Geneviève and the cheery Sébastien. No one realises that Antek has left behind a terrible secret in his own country. Only the discovery of a mysterious property to which Geneviève takes him and the possibility of a new romantic relationship present Antek with a way out of the darkness. But before he can begin a new life he must confront the ghosts of his past, conjure them up and exorcise them.
The storytelling is like the feathers of a peacock, oscillating between unobtrusive glimmering and striking iridescence. And so gentle summer days slide into night-time terrors or vanish in short flights of fancy into parallel worlds.