June, 1914. 14-year-old Oda von Siering returns to her family home on the Baltic coast, a region uneasily shared by Germans, Russians and Estonians.

With her are the mortal remains of her mother, who passed away in Berlin. Awaiting the bright and inquisitive girl at Poll, the estate of her aristocratic German-Baltic family, is a society clinging to their privileges in a world on the brink of disaster. Her father Ebbo, an eccentric scientist with a dubious interest in racial breeding; her aunt Milla, who flees reality through music and affairs; her cousin Paul, a young cadet in the Russian Army.

Upon finding a wounded Estonian anarchist on the estate, the passionate, impulsive Oda fearlessly hides him and secretly nurses him back to health, aware that her deed could trigger a chain reaction of dramatic consequences for her relatives and for herself.