What happened this night of 1845? Which event could be enough tragic to leave its print in the space time? Paul is only thirteen years old in 1950 when it meets for the first time Melanie Pradel, small a six year old girl. He has some sixty-three when he finds her, and she is always the same small girl with the long russet-red hair.
In The fact, Melanie was born into 1839 within a large and unified family. her father, Etienne, were the junior by two wire of a land great landowner who did not accept this second boy ,so he considered his birth as an accident. He feared that his domain would be parceled out by his descents one day. For to escape of his father's refusal to accept him, Etienne left the country. After some a few years, it returned to the domain, hoping to be able to live discreetly in the middle of wood with his family. But his father rejected it more than ever, at the point to send men to burn his house and to kill his family. It is this night that Paul, in 1950, met the Pradel family in 1845, the night of the magic spell.
The teenager had been lost in wood by one evening of storm. It was collected by the Pradel family time that the rain ceases, then Etienne asked his Melanie daughter to accompany back Paul to the exit of the forest. Thanks to that, the small girl will escape slaughter. She will be collected by friendly gypsies of her father… then will disappear. Nobody will know what occurred during the a hundred and fifty years which followed, until the day when Melanie will be found sleeping at the feet of a church.