After many years of living in Los Angeles, Elisabeth returns to her small home town in Upper Austria to sell the old farm house she has inherited from her mother. She has never met her mother and always hated her as a "heartless woman" for giving her away as a small child. Yet Elisabeth herself seems to be a cold and unhappy woman, obviously suffering from her inability to relate to others. As Elisabeth arrives in her late mother's house, she not only finds her eccentric drunk brother Thomas there, but also - a little four year old girl, that appears and disappears like a ghost. Elisabeth has to learn that the little girl is - or was - no one but herself thirty years ago. She begins to doubt her own perception and slowly comes to the conclusion that she must be insane, just like her late mother was (according to the locals). Even the slowly arising love affair with the shady head of the local hospital cannot keep her from falling deeper and deeper into a psychological checkmate. She ...