Víctor Moldes is an excellent student of medicine and could easily have accepted any number of jobs at university, but prefers to work with patients. He is, therefore, thrilled when he is given a job at the Beira Verde clinic run by two leading psychiatry specialists, Hugo Montenegro and Elsa von Frantz. He is extremely impressed by the clinic’s record in alternative treatments and also by the clinic’s facilities, but is shocked to learn of the existence of a separate wing, where one patient is being kept on her own, who has not responded to treatment. Dr Montenegro entrusts this patient to Víctor because he believes he may be able to come up with a new kind of therapy and think outside accepted parameters. It is September 1999.

A nurse brings Víctor his new patient’s case history, through which Víctor learns that Laura Novo grew up in Coruña and Madrid, where she studied journalism and worked as a journalist before inexplicably abandoning Madrid and returning to Galicia a year earlier, in September 1998. He is far from convinced by the clinic’s own diagnosis of anxiety disorder owing to a lightning bolt that landed right next to Laura when she was out walking near the house where she stayed in Galicia in May 1999, as a result of which she spent six weeks in Santiago General Hospital and was then admitted to the Beira Verde clinic at the end of June, two and a half months before Víctor met her.

Among the papers, Víctor discovers a collection of short stories written by Laura, Like Floating Clouds, and comes to the conclusion that the best way to lay siege to Laura’s mind is through literature. He decides to enter her cell, sitting in a corner and first reading to himself in silence, then out loud, to see if he can draw her attention. This works and, after several days, Laura comes to sit next to him in order to listen. The next stage of Víctor’s plan is to start reading a novel, which he does, and then walk outside. Despite her initial hesitation and reaction to the light, Laura decides to follow him and eventually their reading gives way to the beginnings of conversation.

However, on the subject of her return to Galicia a year before, Laura remains mute. She is having bad dreams, which Víctor interrupts in order to learn the cause. Laura explains she is in a passage, wanting but unable to turn a corner, where she can see a large, black shadow on the wall. Víctor understands this to refer to some unresolved conflict, which he believes she must relive in order to resolve it. Two incidents seem to put paid to any progress they may have made. The first happens in a restaurant, where Laura faints at the sight of a dish of lobsters; the second, in a museum, where Laura runs away at the sight of a plinth with what looks like animal markings. Laura later claims she is recovering the memory of her time back in Galicia and Víctor persuades her to write it all down in a journey upriver like that of Marlow in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Here begins Laura’s own narrative, as she responds to the doctor’s request. In Madrid, she realizes her relationship with Miguel is going nowhere and she cannot bear his family, so despite the wedding plans she takes the decision to relocate to Galicia. She has also recently lost her job as a journalist owing to her criticisms of the Minister of Culture, so decides her best prospects lie in accepting a job at university, for which she will have to finish her thesis. She comes across an advertisement for rural tourism in Galicia and goes onto a website, where she discovers one particular property, the Big House of Lanzós, which is owned and run by Carlos Valcárcel, her old history teacher from school, with whom she fell in love before her father was promoted and the family moved to Madrid in 1985. She cannot believe that their paths have crossed again, but on realizing that this is the same Carlos Valcárcel, she makes a booking to stay in the Big House.

Once there, she learns that Carlos abandoned his job as a teacher owing to constant complaints about indiscipline and political content in his classes, despite the fact that his students found him to be an inspiring teacher. On the death of his father and aunt, he inherited numerous properties in Santiago and Coruña, which allowed him to abandon his job and go travelling for two years, an experience that was ultimately unsatisfying. So he returned to his maternal great-grandfather’s property in Lanzós, the place where he spent his childhood summers, and decided to turn it into a hotel offering rural tourism. The hotel was refurbished and opened in 1993, and business is flourishing.