When her old friend, Ricky Maulders, who is dying cancer, visits artist Dorothea Howard, he discovers shes being held captive by the magical power of one of her own creations that she refuses to let go of, and haunted by the ghost of a judge in post-Revolution France. Dorothea insists that all she wants is to be left alone. But then three Chicano teens on the run from the police and a gaggle of summer-school students violently enter Dorotheas life, and shes confronted with all the messy stuff (like politics) shes always sought to avoid.