One autumn afternoon in Mexico City, 17-year-old Luisa does not return home from school. Instead, she boards a bus to the Pacific coast with the reckless, impulsive Tomas, a boy she barely knows. Their quest: to track down a troupe of Ukrainian dwarfs who have recently escaped a touring circus. Together they head for Zipolite, the "Beach of the Dead", a community peopled by hippies, nudists, beach combers and eccentric storytellers, and Luisa searches for someone, anyone, who will "promise, no matter what, to remain a mystery". But as Luisa wanders the shoreline, she begins to discover that a quest is more easily envisioned than accomplished.