Ludovico de Maistre
Stella Miani, thirty years old, a wounded soul on the brink of self- destruction, fleeing a life she no longer recognizes, heads for a place of happy memories, immersed in the Piedmont countryside.
A car accident brings her into contact with Irene Shaw, a refined and melancholic woman who convinces her to come with her to her estate in the woods for a consultation with her husband, a respected doctor. There she meets Milton, a cultured, magnetic, and charismatic Italian-American man who immediately fascinates her with the promise of spiritual rebirth.
An intense, almost mystical bond develops between Stella and Milton. Irene, sick and fragile, observes the two growing closer with a mixture of tenderness and unease. A strange three-way bond develops, between knowing glances, unspoken feelings, barely restrained sexual urges, and hidden secrets. When Irene dies in suspicious circumstances, reality cracks. Stella, aware that she loves Milton viscerally, and that he loves her back, is devastated by guilt but unable to walk away.
She gradually discovers a universe of rituals and obsessions that she shares with Milton, who survived an incurable disease as a child and is practically revered as a living miracle by his family and friends. Trapped in a vortex of toxic love and distorted faith, Stella becomes the object and victim of a transformation. Her body becomes a testing ground, her pain the subject of ritual.
Milton believes he can keep evil at bay through cruel “sacrifices of love,” a belief born of his experiences as a doctor—and later a healer—in Africa. In order for Milton to live, those who love him must give themselves up to death for him. Stella, completely subjugated, aware that evil has returned to invade her beloved Milton, is ready to offer herself to him.
But, when everything seems decided, the girl chooses to face the end as an act of will: no longer a victim, but an instrument of her own liberation. The story ends on the shores of the estate's lake, in a setting that Milton has curated as a representation of his Africa. The lake becomes a baptism and a tomb. Milton survives, Stella disappears into the waters—perhaps redeemed, perhaps lost to Evil itself. Milton, certain that he has been healed once again (but was he ever ill?), returns like a resurrected god into the arms of his family, who welcome him joyfully and confidently, believing the miracle to be perpetuated.