Lida and Alexey, students of the Literary Institute, are renting a room, which they think is very good - not far from the center, inexpensive. The landlady is a lonely woman with some oddities, but this does not bother them. However, moving to a new apartment does not bring them happiness. Soon Alexey disappears - no call, no note. Lida reports to the police, and meanwhile she tries to distract herself from terrible thoughts with work. This is an unusual commission from a publisher - to write a sequel to Charles Dickens's last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Trying to decipher the true destinies and motives of Dickens's heroes, Lida begins to feel some connection between that long-standing ominous history and her current misadventures.