In spring 1707 in Villon-sur-Sarthe, sixteen-year-old Adeline LaRue feels the village treating her like something meant to be “plucked” and contained through marriage. Comparing herself to Isabelle, who seems content with a traditional life, Adeline decides she would rather be like Estele: rooted, wild, and left to grow on her own terms.

While carrying laundry to the riverbank, Adeline reveals a hidden sketchbook among the clothes, one of several she has collected and filled over the years. She also keeps folding drawings into the riverbank as small offerings, praying both to the Christian God and to the old gods when her parents are not watching; she believes something is listening even though she has received no direct answer.

Adeline recalls how her prayers have coincided with being spared unwanted courtship: George Caron’s attention shifted to Isabelle, who is now his wife and pregnant, and when Arnaud Tulle persisted, he later fell ill and died. Though Adeline feels guilty for her relief, she continues feeding trinkets to the stream, convinced that she has remained “free” from marriage—except for being bound to Villon itself.

Settling on the slope with charcoal and pencils, Adeline draws the village and her family, but she most obsessively fills leftover space with a “stranger” she has invented from appealing pieces of local men. Over time, the imagined man becomes vivid—black curls, pale eyes, and a confident presence—and Adeline begins to use him as a companion who tells her stories of distant cities and wonders beyond her life.

As Adeline’s longing intensifies, dreaming stops being harmless: her body changes, expectations tighten, and her isolation feels like an offense to everyone around her. Her mother scorns her, her father mourns her, and even Estele warns her about being a “dreamer,” a word that only turns ominous when Adeline “wakes up.”