Summer 1911. Former Kyiv investigator and now exile Platon Chechel performs a delicate assignment in Poltava. But he is detained in the city by another story, not criminal, but mystical. Something strange is happening in the region. The weather is deteriorating, cattle are dying en masse, and a young local landlady is accused of witchery. Behind all this are old foreign family sins, bloody retribution for them is inevitable. What devils are hiding in a swampy corner of Poltava region? Why do the owners of estates smile and at the same time sharpen knives at strangers? To establish the truth for Plato is a matter of honor. And survival ...