Belarusian Polesie, mid-19th century... In the dead of night on an unfamiliar road, a terrible event happens to the main character Prokhor Chigir: an evil fate brings him together with an old witch who keeps the entire neighborhood in fear. Having suppressed the will of the unsuspecting traveler, the witch forces him to see something that actually did not happen: she appears before the young guy in the guise of a beautiful girl. But this time the seasoned witch miscalculates and underestimates the stranger, who since childhood had learned the instructions of her grandfather, a healer from the Chigirey family. The witch suffers the main defeat in her life, receiving an ugly burn on her face in the confrontation. Now the old woman lives only by terrible revenge, having deceived her beautiful daughter into her plans, and to her misfortune, she fell in love with the new gentleman's forester (Prokhor). In the lives of the characters, the keys of love and hatred, horror and folk humor, mysticism and reality flow, but none of the main characters even suspects that one common misfortune hangs over them all...