Rita, a 13 year old girl, runs away from her abusive father to the big city. She finds solace until she's placed in a safe house run by the State. Rita and her cellmates plot an escape that ends in a shocking act of violence.

A doctor from New York travels to a remote plantation in the 1890s to care for a disturbed boy who seems to have inexplicable abilities. She begins treating the child, but in doing so, ignites a war between science and religion as the local priest believes the boy is possessed by the devil and the cause of the village's woes.