After 20 years, carpenter Johannes Keinath returns to his hometown on Lake Constance. When he fights off two crooks during a robbery, he believes he has fatally injured one of them.

A moderately successful detective with the state police takes in his twin sister's child, a 14-year-old boy who has never been sent to school, does not speak, but seems to possess unusual abilities. A strange bond develops between the two, which takes on irrational traits when it becomes clear that the boy has something to do with strange deaths and can apparently “conjure” the soul out of bodies.

Reserl, a young girl from the country is sent so be a friend to Princess Isabella in the capital of a German principality. Allthough it take quite some time, before the two girls grow to like each other.