1685: on the threshold of Peter's reform, the height of the fight against the schism. The fugitive convict Nechai returned home to his mother. He is tormented by memories of the past, and sometimes it seems to him that home and freedom are just a happy dream. And the boyar Tucha Yaroslavich, and the brother Mishata with his many children, and the beautiful girl Darena... And the monsters that devour late revelers at night. A heavy, dark novel about respect for the dead and the millstones of church justice.