Once upon a time, Ilona’s mother ran away from home with a gypsy. To console the girl, the grandmother told a fairy tale about fairies living in the attic of their old house and protecting her from all misfortunes. But her grandmother died, Ilona grew up and knows that fairies do not exist, which means there is no one to save her from adversity. And there are plenty of troubles in her life: on a terrible stormy night, her fiancé Vladik mysteriously disappeared, on the same day someone stole archival materials from the museum where she works, a family heirloom was stolen from the house - a watercolor self-portrait of Elena's great-grandmother. And to top off all the troubles, Ilona discovered the corpse of an unknown man in her own living room...